I!  '■^' 


/S-  .  S".  I/. 


PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 


Purchased  by  the  Hamill   Missionary  Fund. 

Division  ■■*«J.)rr'...rr'^^.^  \ 
Section  ...'.*.'. \J^ 


AN    INTERPRETATION    OF    INDIA'S 
RELIGIOUS    HISTORY 


By  Robert  A.  Hume,  D.D. 


An  Interpretation  of  India  s 
Religious  History 

12mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

The  author  of  this  careful,  though  popular, 
study  is  eminently  quahfied  to  deal  with  the 
subject  of  his  interesting  volume.  Equipped 
for  this  purpose  through  long  residence  in 
India  and  intimate  study  of  India's  religious 
history,  what  he  says  will  be  accepted  as  the 
estimate  and  interpretation  by  an  authority. 

Missions  from  the 
Modern  View 

Introduction   by  Dr.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall 

12mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

The  Congregationalist  says: 

"Dr.  Hume's  treatment  of  the  theme  is  that 
of  one  on  the  firing  line,  engaged  in  manifold 
practical  activities,  but  at  the  same  time  keep- 
ing pace  with  the  best  Christian  thought  of 
England  and  America.  The  book  is  like  the 
author,  simple,  frank,  genuine,  modest  and 
withal,  profound  and  convincing." 


AN   INTERPRETATION 

OF  INDIA'S 

RELIGIOUS   HISTORY 


ROBERT  A.  HUME,  D.D.A      '~^'^ 

DEC  8  1911 


A 


^iO£lill%V^ 


WITH    INTRODUCTION    BY 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

President  of  Oberlin  College 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming    H.   Revell    Company 

London         and         Edinburgh 


Copyright,  igii,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  123  N.  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London  :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


MY  INDIAN  BROTHERS, 

CHRISTIAN 

AND  NON-CHRISTIAN, 

WITH    LOVE    AND    HOPE 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  seems  almost  an  impertinence  for  one 
without  an  experience  in  India  like  Dr. 
Hume's  to  attempt  even  a  brief  intro- 
duction to  these  illuminating  lectures  on  the 
religious  history  of  India.  Dr.  Hume  needs 
no  outsider's  commendation  or  correction;  for 
he  writes  out  of  the  treasures  of  long  resi- 
dence and  devoted  service  in  India,  of  pains- 
taking study  of  its  life  and  thought,  and  of 
sympathetic  and  reverent  appreciation  of  its 
religious  development. 

But  one  may  well  express  his  gratitude  for 
the  precise  nature  of  the  aim  and  spirit  of 
these  lectures,  and  for  the  detailed  illustra- 
tions in  which  aim  and  spirit  are  indicated. 
For  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the 
lectures  is,  that  they  are  in  earnest  with 
Christ's  conception  of  God  as  Father  of  all 
men,  and  strive  to  look  at  the  complex  re- 
ligious phenomena  of  India  in  that  light. 
Dr.  Hume  sees  clearly,  that,  for  the  Chris- 
tian man,  who  really  believes  that  God  is 
Father,  the  great  difficulty  to-day  is  not  to 

5 


6  INTRODUCTION 

account  for  the  good  in  the  non-Christian 
religions;  but  as  he  says,  ''the  more  per- 
plexing problem  is  how  to  account  for  arrest 
and  degeneracy  in  religion  and  society."  In 
the  light  of  God's  Fatherhood,  the  Christian 
does  not  grant  reluctantly  any  evidences  of 
the  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  among  all 
peoples,  but  rejoices  in  them;  he  needs  such 
evidences  to  keep  his  faith  in  Christ's  concep- 
tion of  God.  And,  he  needs  also  to  under- 
stand just  how  degeneracy  crept  in;  and  he 
will  see  this  most  clearly  in  comparisons 
with  religious  phenomena  with  which  he  is 
more  familiar.  Such  a  Christian,  therefore, 
will  be  grateful  for  the  detailed  way  in 
which  Dr.  Hume  helps  him  to  see  the 
parallels  between  the  religious  development 
of  India  and  that  of  the  West,  both  in  its 
advances,  and  in  its  losses.  There  is  no  at- 
tempt to  disguise  the  facts  on  either  side; 
there  is  clear  criticism,  as  well  as  warm 
appreciation,  but  in  both  cases  the  insight 
is  the  insight  of  faith  and  love — of  faith  in 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  love  for  his 
Indian  "  brothers,"  as  he  truly  feels  them 
to  be. 

Dr.  Hume  naturally  assumes  that  we  may 
not  take  it  for  granted  that  Western  inter- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

pretations  have  exhausted  the  meaning  of 
Christ  for  men,  but  that  we  may,  rather, 
rationally  expect  a  valuable  supplement  to 
Western  interpretations  from  the  honest  re- 
action of  the  Indian  mind  on  the  great  Chris- 
tian facts. 

Dr.  Hume  does  not  attempt  an  elaborate 
scientific  essay  in  comparative  religion,  but 
the  brevity  and  seeming  simplicity  of  the 
lectures  may  easily  obscure  for  one  the  large 
amount  of  thoughtful  observation  and  study 
packed  into  them.  The  more  earnestly  one 
has  himself  tried  to  think  through  the  com- 
plex and  puzzling  phenomena  of  the  religious 
life  in  India,  the  more  likely  is  he  to  appre- 
ciate what  Dr.  Hume  has  here  accomplished. 

Henry  Churchill  King. 

Oberlin  College. 


CONTENTS 
I 

PAGB 

An  Interpretive  Outline  of  India's  Earlier 
Religious  History         ....  .11 

II 

An  Interpretive  Outline  of  India's  Later 

Religious  History 64 

III 

An  Analysis  of  Some  Fundamentals  of 
Hinduism no 

IV 

The  Greatness  and   Weakness  of   Hinduism     145 

V 

India's  Preparation  for  the  Christ,  and 
Christ's  Power  to  Meet  That  Prepara- 
tion ........     179 


AN  INTERPRETIVE  OUTLINE  OF  INDIA'S 
EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

IN  a  religious  history  of  the  world  an 
account  of  the  religious  thought  and  life 
of  India  would  form  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant sections,  because  it  would  be  the 
theme  of  a  large  part  of  the  entire  life  of  a 
most  religious  people,  extending  over  a  long 
period.  Libraries  have  been  written  on  the 
subject  without  covering  it  One  reason  is 
that  obscurity  veils  much  of  the  story.  Most 
of  the  life  of  ancient  generations  of  every 
people  has  naturally  passed  into  oblivion. 
Fortunately  India's  religious  memorials,  en- 
shrined in  her  literature,  give  a  part  of  her 
religious  experience.  But  ancient  books  give 
mainly  the  religious  conceptions  of  the 
thinkers.  Yet  the  power  of  any  religion  is 
more  in  what  it  makes  the  masses  do  than 
in  what  it  leads   either  the  classes  or   the 


12  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

masses  to  profess  to  believe.  Another  reason 
why  scholars  have  not  covered  the  whole 
story  of  India's  religious  history  is  the  variety 
and  complexity  of  the  thought  and  life  of 
that    multitudinous    people. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  some  fairly  well 
known  characteristics  of  that  history.  Those 
who  desire  the  utmost  spiritual  development 
of  that  country,  and  who  believe  that  the 
Christ  can  give  this  development,  need  an 
interpretation  of  how  its  varying  religious 
beliefs  and  practices  arose  and  mingled  with 
and  modified  one  another;  how  they  grew, 
suffered  arrest  of  development  and  degenera- 
tion; how  efforts  at  reform  sometimes  suc- 
ceeded and  sometimes  failed;  what  the  large 
outcome  of  these  movements  has  been;  what 
is  the  present  state  of  thought  and  life  in 
that  land;  and  what  appears  to  be  the  out- 
look for  the  future.  Such  an  effort  in  brief 
compass  must  unavoidably  be  quite  general, 
and  doubtless  will  be  imperfect.  The  justi- 
fication for  an  attempt  lies  in  the  need  of 
such  an  interpretation,  and  in  the  experience 
of  the  writer,  who  was  born  in  Bombay,  who 
has  spent  thirty-six  years  of  adult  missionary 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY         1 3 

service  in  western  India,  and  who  has  deep 
love  and  high  hope  for  his  native  land. 

The  assumption  underlying  this  attempt 
is  that  God  has  been  ever  seeking  His  Indian 
children;  that  He  has  never  left  Himself 
without  witness  among  them;  that  with  many 
limitations  and  errors  the  people  of  India 
have  diligently  sought  after  God  in  eager 
desire  that,  haply  they  might  find  Him, 
though  He  has  never  been  far  from  them; 
that  He  mercifully  bore  with  those  times  of 
limitation  and  ignorance;  that,  as  to  earlier 
generations  of  Israel  God  spoke  through 
Hebrew  prophets  by  divers  portions  and  in 
divers  manners,  so  to  previous  generations 
of  Indians  God  spoke  more  or  less  distinctly 
by  Indian  thinkers  and  saints;  but  that  now 
He  is  speaking  to  His  children  by  His  Son, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  effulgence 
of  His  glory  and  His  very  image.  This 
assumption  is  coupled  with  the  ardent  de- 
sire and  expectation  that  the  gifted  Indian 
children  of  the  Father  of  all  spirits  will, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  universal  Spirit, 
find  and  accept  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  the 
fulfiller  of  their  long  aspiration  and  search, 


14  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

and  that,  so  finding  and  accepting  Him,  they 
will  be  inspired  by  the  divine  Spirit  mar- 
vellously to  interpret  Him  to  their  brethren 
throughout  the  world. 

The  best  illustration  of  the  statement  that 
man  is  "  incurably  religious "  is  found  in 
the  Hindu  people.  "  Religion  "  influences 
their  thought  and  conduct  from  before  birth 
until  after  death.  What  made  the  Hindu 
such?  God.  Have  we  not  all  one  Father? 
Is  He  the  God  of  the  Christians  only?  Is 
He  not  the  God  of  the  Hindus  also?  Yea, 
of  the  Hindus  also.  The  Christian  must 
more  fully  and  more  gladly  accept  Christ's 
assumption  and  teaching  of  the  Heavenly  Fa- 
ther's impartial  blessing  on  all  His  children. 

Devout  science  scrutinizes  every  potenti- 
ality in  the  physical  and  mental  world  as  a 
thought  and  purpose  of  God,  awaiting  liber- 
ation and  larger  utility.  Devout  spiritual 
science  must  be  equally  open-eyed  and  hope- 
ful in  its  scrutiny  of  every  potentiality  in 
the  spiritual  world.  More  and  more  it  is 
thus  alert.  Comparative  religion  and  psy- 
chology are  showing  that  the  fundamental 
elements  of  religion  are  found  everywhere. 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY         1 5 

Psychology  and  sociology  are  coming  to 
recognize  a  larger  and  larger  element  of 
esthetic  instincts  and  developments  in  chil- 
dren and  in  primitive  peoples.  Hence  we  are 
placing  a  higher  valuation  on  the  religious 
capacity  and  religious  attainments  of  non- 
Christian  peoples,  and  therefore  are  taking 
a  more  respectful  and  sympathetic  attitude 
in  thinking  how  the  more  advanced  peoples 
can,  and  should,  bear  themselves  in  dealing 
with  backward  communities.  If  this  is  the 
correct  attitude  for  those  who  study  the  lan- 
guages and  social  institutions  of  less  advanced 
peoples,  how  much  more  should  the  spirit  of 
appreciation  and  respect  characterize  and  ani- 
mate those  who  thoroughly  believe  in  God 
and  who,  from  profound  hope  in  Him,  seek 
to  be  helpful  religiously  to  all  peoples. 

"  Thrice  blessed  is  he  to  whom  is  given  the 
instinct  that  can  tell 
That  God   is   in  the  field  when   He  is 
most  invisible." 

One     fundamental     reason     why     earnest 
Christians  have  not  yet  adequately  recognized 


1 6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

God's  influence  in  the  best  elements  of  the 
religious  habits  and  thoughts  of  non-Chris- 
tians is  the  failure  to  distinguish  carefully, 
continuously,  and  gladly  between  a  spiritual 
value  and  its  outward  expression  in  language 
and  rite.  It  is  not  children  alone  who  find 
it  hard  to  distinguish  between  the  thing  and 
its  name.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  mis- 
understood, criticised,  hated,  and  put  to 
death  by  religious  zealots  because  He  did 
distinguish  between  the  name  and  the  thing 
in  religion.  He  cared  nothing  for  the  name, 
but  cared  everything  for  the  genuine  thing 
in  religion.  He  was  infinitely  pained  by  the 
formality  and  hypocrisy  which  had  no  reality 
of  spiritual  experience,  while  assuming  that 
it  was  the  possessor  and  divinely  appointed 
guardian  of  the  truth,  because  it  used  reli- 
gious terms  which  were  hallowed  from  a 
period  when  those  terms  expressed  an  expe- 
rience which  afterwards  was  lost  in  tradi- 
tionalism   and    formality. 

It  is  now  time  for  Missions  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  movement  against  traditional- 
ism in  the  West  by  applying  similar  tests 
to  ascertain  what  fundamental  spiritual  value 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY         1 7 

there  may  be  in  thought  and  life  among  non- 
Christian  peoples,  despite  immense  degen- 
eracy in  the  expressions  of  that  thought  and 
life.  By  such  service  Missions  may  give 
reflex  help  to  the  Western  movement  against 
traditionalism,  which  seeks  for  spiritual  real- 
ity, and  which  is  often  misunderstood  and 
opposed,  as  was  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  mis- 
understood and  opposed,  by  many  at  home 
who  deem  themselves  the  guardians  of 
truth. 

If  we  believe  that  God  has  always  been  the 
chief  actor,  even  in  the  religions  of  non- 
Christians,  then  why  has  not  the  Hindu  re- 
ligion been  more  satisfactory  than  the  Chris- 
tian believes  it  to  have  been?  Because  the 
Hindu  has  his  full  share  of  the  limitations 
and  sins  of  humanity.  Some  of  these  limita- 
tions and  sins  are  great  difficulty  in  seeing 
things  in  proper  proportions,  that  is,  the 
common  tendency  to  take  a  part  for  the 
whole;  when  disillusioned  by  the  excess  and 
unsatisfactoriness  of  one-half  of  the  truth, 
the  habit  of  going  to  the  other  extreme,  for 
example  now  to  consider  the  outside  the 
whole    of    a    thing,    and    anon    to    think    its 


1 8  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

whole  to  be  the  inside;  pride  of  the  intellect; 
unworthy  contentment  with  lower  things  in- 
stead of  eagerness  for  the  best;  disregard  of 
brother  men,  and  imagining  that  there  is  a 
way  of  life  with  God  apart  from  love  to  His 
human  children;  and  finally  no  experience 
of  God's  supreme  revelation  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  until  recently.  These  are  the 
reasons  which  account  for  the  unsatisfactori- 
ness  of  Hindu  religious  thought  and  life. 
The  man  who  finds  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
a  balance,  a  universality,  a  dynamic  satisfying 
and  inspiring  to  intellect,  heart,  and  will, 
who  makes  Him  the  Lord  of  his  life,  and 
who  therefore  draws  from  his  Master  char- 
acter like  His,  simply  must,  from  very  joy 
and  gratitude,  desire  and  strive  to  impart  to 
brother  men  everywhere  what  he  has  him- 
self received  and  what  that  Lord  wishes  to 
impart  through  him  to  others.  In  a  word, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  being  the  completest, 
the  balanced,  revelation  of  God  and  the  lov- 
ing, suffering  Son  of  Man,  He  is  the  moral 
magnet  and  the  spiritual  dynamic  of  the 
world. 

Nor  is  the  Christian  adequately  qualified 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY         1 9 

to  interpret  God's  work  in  the  religious 
thought  and  life  of  the  world,  if  he  does  not 
always  couple  with  the  spiritual  dynamic  of 
the  Christ  the  universal,  all-powerful,  cease- 
less activity  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  Was 
not  the  Holy  Spirit  at  work  for  the  Hebrew 
people  before  the  time  of  the  Christ?  Un- 
questionably. What  the  Christ  did  was  to 
free  men's  minds  and  to  assure  man  that  the 
divine  Pedagogue  is  a  real,  eternal,  universal, 
ever  active  guide  for  all  men,  though  now 
having  in  the  character,  teachings,  life,  and 
sufferings  of  the  Christ  a  supremer  instru- 
ment for  His  work  than  the  world  had  pre- 
viously known.  Was  that  universal,  divine 
Pedagogue  doing  nothing  for  Hindus  till 
after  the  departure  of  the  Christ?  They  who 
seem  to  think  so  would  deny  the  divinity  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  Being  divine  and  universal, 
of  course  He  was  doing  all  that  in  that  stage 
of  every  nation's  history  He  could  do. 

The  thoughtful  man  who  thus  believes  in 
the  perpetual  and  beneficent  activity  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  can  not  only  affirm,  but  truly 
and  thankfully  believe,  that  in  the  entire 
history  of  mankind  there  is  one  far-off  divine 


20  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves,  that 
there  is  a  divine  activity  and  purpose  in  every 
part  of  the  story  of  the  world.  God  has  never 
failed  steadily  to  adhere  to  His  one  purpose. 
The  sad,  pathetic  element  in  the  world's  re- 
ligious history  is  man's  misapprehension,  or 
partial  apprehension,  or  rejection  of  God's 
fatherly  effort  for  him. 

"Nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 
Not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

The  vision  of  the  Christ  ought  also  to  ac- 
complish two  more  important  effects  on  the 
spirit  of  such  a  man.  One  effect  should  be  a 
sense  of  humility  for  the  limitations  and  errors 
of  himself  and  of  others  who  bear  the  Chris- 
tian name.  The  other  effect  should  be  en- 
couragement at  finding  in  brother  men  who 
have  not  previously  enjoyed  a  knowledge  of 
the  Christ  some  preparation  for  Him, 
coupled  with  humble  recognition  of  the  fact 
that,  to  broaden  and  quicken  the  thought  and 
life  of  himself  and  other  Christians,  these  need 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        21 

from  some  non-Christians  some  truths  which 
those  have  received.  Too  often  the  Christian 
enthusiast  has  not  realized  that  a  humble 
readiness  to  learn  is  a  Christian  virtue  needed 
to  qualify  him  for  his  task  as  well  as  zeal  to 
impart  what  he  has  already  received.  As  in 
other  spheres,  so  in  religion  the  principle 
holds, — give  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you; 
good  measure,  pressed  down,  shaken  together, 
running  over  shall  they  give  into  your  bosom. 
No  man  and  no  community  is  a  self-cen- 
tred unit.  All  men  and  all  religions  are 
bound  into  an  organic  whole.  The  principle 
of  instrumentality,  of  mediation,  is  God's 
method.  The  Bible  is  one  long  illustration  of 
man's  mistaken  desire  to  be  a  separate  unit, 
dependent  on  his  own  thoughts  and  plans. 
But  God's  thoughts  have  ever  been  higher 
than  men's  thoughts,  and  God's  ways  than 
men's  ways.  Through  His  teaching  to  every 
human  child  God  has  planned  to  do  some- 
thing for  His  other  children.  Neither  Hindu, 
nor  Persian,  nor  Egyptian,  nor  Greek,  nor 
Hebrew,  nor  the  average  Christian  has  known 
all  that  God  planned  to  do  through  him  by 
what  He  did  for  him.     Even  to  the  most 


22  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

clear-sighted  of  the  prophets  and  poets  of  all 
nations  have  been  given  inspirations  and 
ideals  beyond  and  above  their  ken.  Not 
only  to  the  great  Persian  could  God  say, 
"Cyrus,  my  anointed;  I  have  surnamed 
thee,  thou  hast  not  known  Me.  I  will  gird 
thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  Me;  that  at 
last  they  may  know  from  the  rising  of  the 
sun  and  from  the  west  that  there  is  none 
beside  Me.  I  am  the  Lord."  The  spiritual 
interpreter  of  the  past  must  see  and  confess 
that  many  another  religious  leader  in  many 
lands  has  been  the  unconscious,  but  anointed, 
instrument  of  God  to  help  the  world  sooner 
or  later  to  the  one  Christlike  God,  the  Father 
of  the  spirits  of  all  men.  When  the  Lord 
Jesus  says,  "  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life;  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by 
Me,"  He  means  that  He  is  and  shows  the 
way  of  God  to  men,  even  before  He  is,  and 
shows,  men's  way  to  God.  And  by  revealing 
God  as  the  Father  He  teaches  that  God  is 
ready  not  only  for  the  future  to  do  His  ut- 
most for  every  human  child,  but  also  that  in 
the  past  He  has  done  His  workable  best  for 
all  men. 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        23 

Before  beginning  a  large  interpretation  of 
India's  religious  history,  it  seemed  desirable 
thus  briefly  to  state  the  assumptions  and 
principles  on  which  the  attempt  is  made,  and 
also  to  give  some  forecast  of  the  conclusion 
which  is  being  drawn.  But  in  order  to  at- 
tempt such  interpretation  it  is  necessary  first 
to  give  at  least  an  outline  of  that  history. 
The  present  lecture  will  attempt  an  inter- 
pretive outline  of  the  earlier  history  of  India 
up  to  the  decline  of  the  Buddhist  movement. 
The  next  lecture  will  give  an  outline  of 
India's  later  religious  history  from  the  rise 
of  modern  Hinduism  to  its  recent  contact 
with  the  West.  The  third  lecture  will  at- 
tempt an  analysis  of  the  most  significant  char- 
acteristics of  dominant  Hinduism.  The  sub- 
sequent lecture  will  be  a  characterization 
of  the  greatness  and  the  weakness  of  Hin- 
duism. The  final  lecture  will  seek  to 
show  how  India's  religious  history  has  pre- 
pared her  to  receive  and  to  interpret  the 
Christ,  and  how  the  Christ  has  power  to  meet 
that  preparation. 

I  briefly  forecast  what  in  my  judgment  will 
be  the  conclusions  reached  in  these  lectures. 


24  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

As  we  run  through  an  outline  of  India's 
history,  in  my  judgment  four  words  will  cor- 
rectly epitomize  the  characteristics  of  that 
history: — progress,  arrest,  degeneracy,  and  re- 
form— all  four  repeated  over  and  over  again 
through  millenniums.  During  that  long  pe- 
riod India's  religious  gamut  runs  from  fetish- 
ism through  animism,  polytheism,  dualism, 
pantheism,  theism  to  incipient  monotheism, 
with  many  a  discord  and  false  note,  yet,  on 
the  whole,  rising  higher.  India's  religious 
history  is  full  of  illustrations  of  the  age-long 
struggle  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh  and  of 
the  flesh  against  the  spirit,  with  victory  now 
for  one  and  now  for  the  other.  It  is  a  pano- 
rama of  the  struggle  which  occurs  in  every 
religion  between  the  letter  and  the  spirit,  be- 
tween metaphysics  and  life,  between  a  me- 
chanical and  a  spiritual  view  of  religion. 
God's  attitude  toward  man  must  always  have 
been  the  same  before  and  since  the  Christ. 
Christ  only  revealed,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
taking  the  things  of  Christ  is  more  and  more 
revealing,  what  God's  eternal  attitude  is. 
Where  the  Christ  has  revealed  God's  real 
attitude   toward   His   human   children,   men 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        25 

have  begun  to  understand  that  the  funda- 
mental relation  between  God  and  His  chil- 
dren is  one  in  which  He  is  the  first  and 
chief  agent,  suffering  because  His  children 
are  ignorant  of  and  estranged  from  Him, 
that  He  is  ever  exerting  His  divine 
power  in  seeking  them  in  order  to  bring 
them  into  harmonious  filial  life,  and  there- 
fore that  their  religious  thinking  and  act- 
ing are  their  response  to  His  call,  how- 
ever feeble  and  mistaken  that  response 
may  be. 

While  India's  religious  history  is  encour- 
aging because  it  shows  that,  despite  limita- 
tions, errors,  and  sin,  the  Hindu  has  made  a 
response  to  the  divine  voice,  it  is  depressing 
because  the  Hindu  has  failed  to  understand 
the  heart  of  religion — that  what  man  needs  is 
not  so  much  to  seek  after  God  as  to  accept 
the  God  who  is  seeking  him.  God  is  the 
great  Reality  in  actual  relation  to  every 
soul.  The  age-long,  fundamental  errors  of 
Hindu  theology  have  been  that  the  universe 
and  world  are  unreal,  that  escape  from  its 
delusive  unreality  is  secured  by  the  intel- 
lectual  belief   that  Reality   is  only   a  meta- 


26     .  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

physical  conception,  and  that  this  intellectual 
belief  is  to  be  gained  by  whittling  away 
every  vital  experience  and  imagining  that  the 
thing — in  itself — without  relations  is  the  great 
reality. 

A  correct  review  of  India's  religious  his- 
tory should  also  reveal  the  working  of  the 
principles  of  genetic  psychology.  These 
principles  have  been  at  work  among  Hindus 
as  much  as  among  any  other  peoples.  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them  is  a  biologi- 
cal law  in  every  department.  No  one  who 
well  knows  the  Hindu  will  fail  to  recognize 
a  vivid  illustration  of  pathetic  arrest  in  the 
Indian  in  many,  perhaps  in  all,  departments 
of  his  marvellous  make-up.  One  of  the 
acutest  interpreters  of  India's  history,  Mere- 
dith Townsend,  speaks  thus:  "  Some  strange 
fiat  of  arrest  has  condemned  the  brown  men 
and  the  yellow  men  to  eternal  reproduction 
of  old  ideas.  They  have  treated  the  earth  as 
if  they  feared  it.  .  .  .  From  end  to  end  of 
Asia  great  stores  of  iron  or  platinum  or  tin, 
of  copper,  silver,  or  gold,  lie  untouched 
waiting  for  the  touch  of  the  European 
spoiler.  ...  If  the  energy  in  digging  which 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        27 

once  was  in  Asia  had  continued,  even  the 
riches  of  Asia  would  by  this  time  have  been 
exhausted."  This  arrest  of  development  in 
practical  matters  has  been  accompanied  by 
arrest  in  spiritual  development  also.  And 
arrest  is  ordinarily  the  prelude  to  degener- 
acy. No  proverb  or  principle  is  more  uni- 
versally accepted  by  the  Hindu  than  that  in 
many  respects  Hinduism  is  now  in  a  de- 
generate stage;  that  there  have  been  in  Hin- 
duism four  ages,  the  Satya,  Treta,  Dvapar, 
and  Kali  Yugas,  which  might  be  termed  the 
golden,  silver,  iron,  and  earthen  or  evil 
ages,  in  the  latter  of  which  Hinduism  now 
finds  itself.  Any  institution  or  organism  has 
suffered  arrest  and  is  suffering  degeneracy 
when  its  golden  age  is  in  the  past.  Also,  in 
India  there  has  been,  and  is,  a  widespread 
belief  that  the  coming  better  age  will 
be  ushered  in  by  a  Kalki  Avatar,  i.e.  a  suf- 
fering, yet  victorious,  incarnation.  It  is  for 
the  Christian  to  show  that  the  Christ  will 
fulfill  that  anticipation,  will  stop  the  arrest 
and  degeneracy,  and  will  develop  a  marvel- 
lous spiritual  age,  partly  at  least,  through  the 
sympathetic,  self-denying,   respectful,  frater- 


28  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

nal  aid  of  brother  Christians  who  are  full  of 
the  Christ-like  spirit. 

Also  the  history  of  Hinduism  distinctly 
shows  the  working  of  both  the  upward  and 
downward  trend  apparent  in  the  principles 
of  genetic  psychology:  superstition  develops 
into  a  simple,  naive,  cheerful  relation  to 
gods,  into  greater  intellectual  thought,  into 
a  recognition  of  laws,  into  legalism,  into  a 
sense  of  disobedience  to  law,  into  a  sense  of 
the  need  of  grace  and  experience  of  grace, 
into  declines  and  reforms,  followed  by  new 
declines  and  new  uplifts  repeated  over  and 
over  again,  till  now  the  Christ  is  already 
giving  to  India  a  life  and  a  power  which 
are  prophetic  of  greater  development  to 
come.  In  the  parable  of  the  wheat  and  tares, 
to  Christ's  disciples,  the  mystery  lay  not  in 
the  growth  of  the  wheat,  but  of  the  tares. 
In  the  history  of  non-Christian  religions,  to 
many  Christians,  the  mystery  has  been  in  the 
growth  of  the  wheat,  not  of  the  tares,  which 
were  easily  supposed  to  be  all,  or  nearly  all, 
the  crop  in  those  religions,  and  which  were 
considered  due  to  the  evil  one.  Now  that 
wheat  also  is  seen  to  be  growing  in  the  field 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY         29 

of  non-Christian  faiths,  to  some  Christians  the 
mystery  seems  to  be  to  whom  the  wheat  is 
to  be  credited.  They  have  not  been  accus- 
tomed to  look  for  wheat  in  the  non-Christian 
religions,  and,  if  wheat  were  found,  they 
could  hardly  credit  it  to  God.  To-day  the 
more  perplexing  problem  is  how  to  account 
for  arrest  and  degeneracy  in  religion  and  in 
society.  But  hardly  any  warning  is  more 
solemn  and  suggestive  to  those  who  call  them- 
selves Christians  and  yet  are  self-centred 
and  self-satisfied  than  one  from  history  which 
is  "  full  of  saddening  examples  of  how  the 
most  hopeful  movements  have  come  to  an 
evil  end  because  those  in  charge  of  them 
have  treated  their  work,  and  themselves,  as 
the  centre  of  the  universe,  instead  of  as  a 
mere  planet  revolving  round  the  central  orb 
of  the  divine  will."  The  theology  of  some 
men  and  races  has  remained  Ptolemaic, 
though  their  astronomy  was  Copernican. 

With  this  introductory  statement  of  as- 
sumptions and  principles  underlying  this  at- 
tempt, I  now  turn  to  a  brief  interpretive 
outline  of  the  religious  history  of  India. 
Five  thousand  years  ago  the  religion  of  the 


30  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

dark-skinned  peoples  of  Kolarian  or  Dravid- 
ian  races  who  inhabited  Hindustan  was  one 
in  which  the  worship  of  serpents,  trees,  the 
phallus,  and  similar  objects  was  common. 
Magic  and  witchcraft  to  avoid  evils  which 
men  feared  were  the  common  elements  of 
their  belief  and  practice.  Cunning  men  were 
set  apart  for  the  purpose,  and  performed 
the  magical  rites  of  the  religion  of  those 
aborigines.  Though  it  was  a  superstitious 
religion  of  degrading  practices,  administered 
by  men  who  were  ignorant  and  often  cruel, 
yet  it  was  a  response  to  the  god  whom  they 
worshipped,  mainly  because  they  feared  him. 
The  religion  of  most  of  the  people  of  India 
has  advanced  beyond  this  low  phase.  Yet 
to  this  day  millions  of  the  descendants  of 
those  aborigines  largely  follow  that  supersti- 
tious system,  and  it  has  also  corrupted  and 
modified  the  religion  of  the  Aryans,  who 
brought  a  higher  religion  into  the  land. 

Somewhere  in  the  interval  of  from  three 
thousand  to  twelve  hundred  years  before  the 
Christian  era  there  came  to  India,  from  the 
northwest,  successive  immigrations  of  peoples 
of   a   race   commonly   called   Aryans.     The 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        3 1 

characteristics  of  the  religion  of  these  new- 
comers can  be  well  determined  from  the 
Rig  Veda,  a  collection  of  1018  hymns  in  ten 
books.  Because  these  hymns,  covering  a 
period  of  from  seven  hundred  to  one  thou- 
sand years,  differ  among  themselves  and  are 
not  chronologically  arranged,  one  cannot  give 
a  positive  opinion  about  the  exact  chrono- 
logical development  of  the  religious  thought 
and  life  of  those  Aryan  settlers  through  so 
long  a  period  as  from  seven  to  ten  centuries. 
But  the  emotions  and  reflections  of  a  quick- 
witted people  could  not  remain  unchanged 
through  such  a  long  period.  The  Rig  Veda 
was  followed  by  three  other  collections  of 
hymns  called  the  Sama,  Yajur,  and  Atharva 
Vedas  which  are  full  of  directions  for  reli- 
gious practices.  In  general  scholars  can 
give  an  approximately  correct  estimate  as  to 
which  hymns  are  earliest,  which  of  an  inter- 
mediate period,  and  which  were  the  latest. 
In  addition  to  the  contents  of  the  hymns,  the 
main  clue  comes  from  the  analogy  of  re- 
ligious evolution  elsewhere,  and  from  the 
later  history  of  Indian  thought.  The  religion 
of  the  Aryans  was  at  first  one  of  appreciation 


32  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

of   the   brighter   aspects   of   external   nature, 
partly  personified  as  gods,  yet  somewhat  in- 
fluenced by  intimations  of  an  unseen  world. 
Their  hymns  were  chants  sung  in  the  open 
air  at  sunrise,  noonday,   and  sunset,  but  es- 
pecially at  sunrise  around   a  simple  family 
altar,  without  temples   and  without  priests. 
They  prayed  for  such  blessings  as  good  crops, 
the  birth  of  children,  success   in  war,   etc., 
much  as  children  nowadays  pray  for  material 
blessings.     The  dawn  and  the  sun  naturally 
were    prominent,    and    as    the    expellers    of 
darkness  were  adored  as  divine.     In  all  its 
varied  aspects  and  activities  the  sun  is  the 
most  striking  and  forceful  object  in  nature. 
The  nineteenth  psalm  in  the  Biblical  book 
of  Psalms  illustrates  how  the  sun  affected  a 
Hebrew  poet  who  said  that  "  Nothing  is  hid 
from  the  heat  thereof."    It  is  not  strange  that 
the  simple  Aryans   adored   and  worshipped 
the  sun  under  various  names,  such  as  Mitra, 
meaning  "  a  friend,"  or  Vishnu,  representing 
the    pervading    activity    of    the    sun.      One 
hymn  of  the  Rig  Vedas  says,  "  O  Sun,  with 
the  light  with  which  thou  overcomest  dark- 
ness, and  rousest  the  whole  world  in  splen- 


INDIA'S   EARLIER   RELIGIOUS   HISTORY         33 

dour,  with  that  light  drive  away  from  us  all 
weakness,  all  negligence,  all  illness  and  sleep- 
lessness." Another  hymn  says,  "  Seeing  the 
light  rise  higher  and  higher  above  the  dark- 
ness, we  come  to  the  highest  light,  to  Surya 
[the  sun],  the  god  among  the  gods."  The 
low  invisible  wind  which  whispered  in  men's 
ears  easily  suggested  a  spirit.  In  the  Bible 
and  in  the  religions  of  Rome  and  Greece  the 
name  of  the  Spirit  is  the  word  for  wind. 
This  earlier  Aryan  religion  clearly  shows 
how  a  belief  in  many  gods  arose.  The  mani- 
fold manifestations  of  power  in  Nature  were 
personified,  and  each  personified  manifesta- 
tion received  a  name  and  each  nomen  easily 
became  a  numen.  Among  unsophisticated 
men  of  little  logical  thought  personification 
of  a  natural  object  was  due  to  a  spiritually 
vitalized  impression  or  experience  leading  to 
a  spiritualized  expression.  This  was  the 
origin  of  Aryan  polytheism.  God  touched 
the  life  of  the  primitive  Aryan  with  mani- 
fold blessing,  and  the  simple  man's  heart 
responded  with  a  divine  name  for  each  mani- 
festation. The  cardinal  features  of  this  early 
Aryan    religion    were    direct    access    to    the 


34  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

gods,  direct  benefits  in  answer  to  prayers  and 
offerings,  and  consequent  fervency  of  prayer 
and  meditation,  and  lavishness  of  praise  and 
sacrifice  which  secured  the  desired  blessings. 
This  was  spiritual  progress  from  the  super- 
stition and  magical  religion  of  the  aborig- 
ines. 

In  that  earliest  Vedic  religion  sacrifices 
were  a  prominent  feature,  but  they  were  not 
propitiatory  offerings  to  appease  an  offended 
deity.  They  were  feasts  to  which  the  gods 
were  invited  as  guests.  The  wood  of  the  sac- 
rificial altar  was  ignited  by  the  householder, 
himself  striking  together  two  pieces  of  wood, 
and  then  this  fire  (Agni)  was  personified  and 
adored  as  divine  because  it  seemed  a  blend- 
ing of  something  which  man  could  not  do 
co-operating  with  man  in  consuming  the  of- 
fering. Here  the  religion  of  the  Hindu  met 
arrest,  which  was  soon  followed  by  degen- 
eracy. 

The  next  development  of  the  Aryan  re- 
ligion was  a  downward  one  when  the  letter 
choked  the  spirit.  In  the  Yajur  and  the 
Atharva  Vedas  sacrifice  has  become  the  prin- 
cipal thing  in  religion.    The  sacrifice  is  now 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        35 

supposed  to  appease  the  god  and  to  influence 
him  to  do  what  the  worshipper  wished. 
There  were  sacrifices  of  all  sorts  of  animals, 
including  the  horse  and  the  cow,  and  occa- 
sionally even  human  sacrifices.  When  such 
importance  was  ascribed  to  sacrifice  the  next 
downward  step  was  that  the  sacrifice  itself 
had  power  to  compel  the  gods,  or  to  have 
power  in  itself  independently  of  God.  And 
when  the  sacrifice  was  made  both  elaborate 
and  supreme,  the  next  easy  downward  step 
was  to  make  the  priest  the  supreme  element 
in  religion  because  only  he  could  properly 
conduct  an  elaborate  and  important  service. 
When  has  not  the  supposition  that  God  must 
be  appeased  by  a  sacrifice,  and  the  conse- 
quent elevating  of  the  sacredness  and  power 
of  the  official  who  performs  the  sacrifice,  led 
to  a  sacerdotal  and  mechanical  view  of  re- 
ligion? This  was  a  victory  of  the  flesh 
over  the  spirit. 

This  development  led  to  another  down- 
ward step  which  is  illustrated  in  the  last 
of  the  Vedas,  the  Atharva  Veda,  namely  the 
necessity  and  power  of  charms  both  for 
blessing    and    cursing.      Whereas    the    early 


36  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

type  of  the  Aryan  religion  was  a  victory  over 
the  degrading  religion  of  the  aborigines,  now 
the  characteristics  of  the  latter  seem  to  have 
become  the  chief  elements  of  even  the  Aryan 
religion.  In  the  later  Vedic  period  the 
Atharva  Veda  became  the  most  influential 
religious  book  of  the  Hindus,  and  is  called 
"  a  picture  of  the  lower  life  of  ancient  India. 
It  exhibits  the  ordinary  Hindu,  not  only  in 
the  aspect  of  a  devout  and  virtuous  wor- 
shipper of  the  gods  and  the  performer  of 
pious  practices,  but  also  as  demon-plagued, 
fear-ridden,  hateful,  lustful,  and  addicted  to 
sorcery."  It  was  one  of  the  frequent  and 
sad  victories  of  the  flesh  over  the  spirit  of 
which  India's  religious  history  is  full. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Vedas  also  show 
one  gratifying  and  upward  movement  in  re- 
ligion, which  was  the  high-water  mark  of 
the  earlier  religious  history  of  India,  viz.: 
the  development  of  an  incipient  monotheism. 
The  one  early  Vedic  deity  who  had  a  dis- 
tinctly moral  character  was  Varuna,  who  in 
name  and  in  sphere,  like  the  Greek  ouranos, 
originally  indicated  the  firmament.  In  his 
case    the    grandeur    of    the    physical    firma- 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        37 

ment  became  united  with  moral  grandeur, 
and  Vedic  poets  ascribed  to  Varuna  activities 
similar  to  those  which  Hebrew  poets  as- 
cribed to  Jehovah.  If  a  similar  result  in  the 
history  of  Israel  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
Spirit  of  God,  then  this  upward  movement 
in  India  also  deserves  to  be  similarly  credited 
to  God.  In  one  hymn  it  is  said  of  Varuna, 
"  Wise  and  mighty  are  the  works  of  him 
who  stemmed  asunder  the  firmaments.  He 
lifted  on  high  the  bright  and  glorious  heaven; 
he  stretched  out  apart  the  starry  sky  and  the 
earth."  In  another  hymn  it  is  said  that 
Varuna  had  opened  a  path  for  the  sun;  he 
knows  the  track  of  the  bird  through  the  air, 
and  of  the  ships  across  the  seas,  and  there 
is  nothing  hid  from  his  sight.  He  possesses 
universal  sovereignty  and  is  the  lord  of 
nature  and  of  men.  His  thousand  spies  go 
forth  throughout  the  world  and  bring  back 
reports  of  what  men  are  doing.  More  than 
any  other  Vedic  deity  Varuna  is  a  moral 
sovereign,  who  awakens  in  men  a  sense  of  sin. 
One  hymn  of  the  Atharva  Veda,  which 
scholars  consider  an  early  hymn,  says,  "  The 
great  guardian   among   the  gods   sees   as   if 


38  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

from  anear.  ...  If  two  sit  together  and 
steal,  King  Varuna  is  there  as  the  third,  and 
knows  it.  .  .  .  Whoso  should  flee  beyond  the 
heavens  far  away  would  not  yet  be  free  from 
King  Varuna.  .  .  .  From  the  sky  his  spies 
come  hither;  with  a  thousand  eyes  they  do 
watch  over  the  earth.  What  is  between  the 
two  firmaments  and  what  beyond,  all  this 
doth  King  Varuna  behold.  Numbered  of 
him  are  the  winkings  of  men's  eyes."  In  a 
hymn  of  the  Rig  Veda  the  singer  conceives 
of  himself  as  forsaken  by  Varuna  on  account 
of  sin,  and  so  asks,  "  What  hath  become  of 
those  our  ancient  friendships  when  without 
enmity  we  walked  together?  .  .  .  O  Varuna, 
if  thy  true  ally  hath  sinned  against  thee,  still 
he  is  the  friend  thou  lovedst."  Varuna's 
moral  dignity  rises  still  higher  because  he  is 
thought  to  be  a  god  to  note,  to  forgive,  and  to 
put  away  sin.  Professor  Macdonnell,  of  Ox- 
ford, says  that,  "  There  is  in  fact  no  hymn  to 
Varuna  in  which  the  prayer  for  forgiveness 
does  not  occur,  as  in  the  hymns  to  the  other 
deities  the  prayer  for  worldly  goods."  The 
following  are  examples  of  such  addresses  to 
this  most  ethical  of  Vedic  gods:  "  Far  from 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        39 

US,  far  away  drive  thou  destruction.  Put 
from  us  even  the  sin  which  we  have  com- 
mitted." Other  hymns  say  that  Varuna 
"  places  his  fetters  upon  the  sinner;  his  is  the 
power  to  bind  and  the  power  also  to  release, 
and  he  forgives  sin  even  unto  the  second 
generation." 

Probably  the  most  marked  recognition  of 
Varuna  as  a  god  of  moral  sovereignty  is  his 
special  connection  with  the  moral  order 
which  is  called  rta  in  Vedic  literature.  A 
word  of  the  same  origin  and  meaning  occurs 
in  the  Iranian  religion.  From  this  we  know 
that  the  thought  of  a  cosmic  order  was  with 
the  Aryan  from  very  early  times.  But  in 
most  of  the  Vedic  religion  so  moral  a  con- 
ception was  vague  and  rare.  The  objects 
in  the  visible  world  and  the  regularly  re- 
curring events  of  nature  were  assumed  to  be 
regulated  by  the  cosmic  order  or  rta.  But 
only  to  a  limited  extent  was  this  cosmic 
order  thought  of  as  also  a  moral  order  of 
righteousness,  save  in  connection  with  the 
god  Varuna.  Yet  this  highest  conception  of 
Varuna  as  a  righteous  deity  can  only  be 
called  an  incipient  monotheism,  since  Varuna 


40  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS   HISTORY 

was  always  only  one  of  many  gods,  though  in 
the  earlier  Vedic  religion  we  see  more  of 
henotheism  than  polytheism,  i.e.  the  singer 
considered  the  god  whom  he  named  as  prac- 
tically the  one  all-powerful  god.  The  many 
gods  were  largely  many  names  of  one  god, 
much  as  monotheists  now  apply  many  epithets 
to  the  only  God  whom  they  acknowledge. 

In  addition  to  recognizing  Varuna  as  a 
personal  and  righteous  god,  some  Vedic  wor- 
shippers gave  a  spiritual  turn  to  their  re- 
ligion by  a  somewhat  vivid  conception  of  a 
personal  relation  between  the  worshipper  and 
god  through  faith.  In  the  earlier  Vedic  times 
the  word  for  faith  (shrdddha)  somewhat  ex- 
pressed reverential  trust  as  well  as  intel- 
lectual belief.  It  expressed  both  intellectual 
conviction  concerning  the  existence  and 
power  of  the  gods  and  also  reverence  toward 
them.  It  implied  a  sense  both  of  reality  and 
of  trust.  Thus  in  one  place  it  is  said:  "  The 
lord  of  creatures  [Prajapati]  having  beheld 
two  qualities,  separated  truth  and  lie  from  one 
another.  He  put  unfaith  into  lie;  faith  he 
placed  into  truth."  But  as  in  other  religions, 
so   in   this   early  simple   religion,   the   letter 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        4I 

began  to  kill  the  spirit,  and  the  word  faith, 
which  should  be  principally  an  expression 
for  an  attitude  of  the  heart,  became  the  name 
for  an  act  of  the  intellect  alone,  or  acquies- 
cence in  a  prevalent  theory  or  doctrine;  and 
faith  became  identified  with  knowledge. 
Then,  as  in  other  religions,  a  still  lower 
value  was  given  to  faith  by  the  assumption 
that  the  intellectual  act  called  faith  had 
religious  power  of  itself.  Not  so  the  New 
Testament  writer  who  said,  "  The  devils 
believe  and  tremble."  Then  the  vivid  imagi- 
nation and  personifying  habit  of  the  Hindus 
semi-personified  such  faith  and  adored  it  as 
a  goddess.    Thus  in  one  place  it  is  said: 

"  Through  Faith  the  gods  obtain  their  divine 

quality; 
Faith,  the  goddess,  is  the  foundation  of  the 

world. 
Faith  do  we  revere  without  oblations; 
May  she  create  for  us  an  immortal  world." 

And  again: 

"  Faith  dwells  in  the  gods, 
Faith  dwells  upon   this  world, 


42  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Faith  the  mother  of  wishes — 
With  oblations  do  we  prosper  her." 

Such  a  conception  of  the  relation  of  a  wor- 
shipper with  a  deity  was  a  downward  move- 
ment, for  it  led  men  to  consider  religion  as 
mainly  the  intellectual  conception  of  a  cer- 
tain doctrine,  or  else  the  performance  of 
prescribed  acts,  in  order  to  secure  desired 
material  blessings.  Then  the  next  step  was 
the  assumption  that  the  way  to  get  the  de- 
sired blessings  lay  through  giving  abundant 
gifts  to  the  priest,  to  influence  him  to  per- 
form the  prescribed  rites.  In  turn  this  in- 
fluenced the  priests  mostly  to  desire  in  their 
religious  thought  and  life  large  gifts  for 
performing  the  rites.  In  what  religion  has 
not  sacramentarianism  been  a  cause  and  an 
indication  of  spiritual  decay?  And  when 
has  it  not  been  swiftly  followed  by  the  next 
downward  step,  namely,  sacerdotalism,  which 
degraded  the  worshipper,  and  still  more  the 
mechanical  priest? 

After  the  flesh  had  thus  debased  Indian  re- 
ligion, under  the  influence  of  the  divine 
Spirit  the  pious  Hindu  revolted  from  such  a 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        43 

mechanical  system  and  the  next  development 
of  the  Vedic  religion  was  an  entire  swing  of 
the  pendulum  from  nature  worship,  poly- 
theism, and  ceremonialism  to  the  final  type 
of  Vedic  religion,  viz. :  philosophical  specu- 
lation. Just  when,  where,  and  how  this  way 
of  thinking  began  is  uncertain.  There  are 
traces  of  it  in  the  earliest  Vedic  hymns. 
Thoughtful  men  began  to  ask  the  whence 
and  how,  and  whither  of  the  universe  and  of 
themselves.  Any  simple  man  who  stops  to 
think  about  the  mysterious  changes  which 
are  constantly  occurring,  cannot  help  some- 
times wondering  what  the  explanation  of 
such  matters  is.  And  later,  when  sacrificial 
ceremonies  were  conducted  on  a  large  scale, 
men  could  not  but  marvel  at  the  alleged 
mystic  power  of  these  rites,  and  question 
why  extreme  importance  was  attached  to 
performing  them  with  mechanical  exactness. 
Some  Indian  philosophical  books  give  ex- 
amples of  the  way  in  which  kings  and 
priests  propounded  an  answer  to  questions 
connected  with  the  performance  of  great 
sacrifices.  Scholars  say  that  such  religious 
riddles  are  probably  unknown  in  any  religion 


44  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

i  ^ 

i  y  except  that  of  India.    The  word  for  specula- 

Jr  y.  tive  discussion  is  brahmavidya,  i.e.  specula- 
te tion  about  Brahma,  or  the  ultimate  reality. 
The  following  is  an  example  of  such  a  dis- 
cussion at  a  horse  sacrifice  (ashvamedha). 
One  priest  asks:  "Who,  verily,  moveth 
quite  alone;  who,  verily,  is  born  again  and 
again;  what,  forsooth,  is  the  remedy  for  cold; 
and  what  is  the  greatest  pile?"  Another 
priest  answers:  "  The  sun  moveth  quite  alone; 
the  moon  is  born  again  and  again;  fire  is 
the  remedy  for  cold;  the  earth  is  the  greatest 
pile."  Again  the  first  priest  asks:  "What, 
forsooth,  is  the  sun-like  light;  what  sea  is 
there  like  unto  the  ocean;  what,  verily,  is 
higher  than  the  earth;  what  is  the  thing 
whose  measure  is  not  known?"  The  second 
priest  answers:  "Brahma  is  the  sun-like 
light;  heaven  is  the  sea  like  unto  the  ocean; 
the  god  Indra  is  higher  than  the  earth;  the 
measure  of  the  cow  is  unknown."  Again 
the  first  priest  says:  "  I  ask  thee  for  the  high- 
est summit  of  the  earth;  I  ask  thee  for  the 
navel  of  the  universe;  I  ask  thee  for  the  seed 
of  the  lusty  steed;  I  ask  thee  for  the  highest 
heaven  of  speech."   The  second  priest  replies: 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        45 

^'  This  altar  is  the  highest  summit  of  the 
earth;  this  sacrifice  is  the  navel  of  the  uni- 
verse; this  soma  [i.e.  the  intoxicating  sacri- 
ficial drink]  is  the  seed  of  the  lusty  steed 
[i.e.  the  god  Indra]  ;  this  Brahman  priest  is 
the  highest  heaven  [i.e.  the  highest  exponent] 
of  speech."  Such  expressions  show  that  the  old 
nature  gods  were  no  longer  a  living  reality  to 
the  poet.  The  thinkers  knew  that  there  were 
no  deities  corresponding  to  the  many  names  of 
many  gods  who  had  once  been  adored  and 
believed  in.  The  thinkers  were  absorbed  in 
searching  for  the  ultimate,  invisible  reality 
behind  all  visible  phenomena.  In  the  164th 
hymn  of  the  first  book  of  the  Rig  Veda  there 
are  fifty-two  lines,  all  except  one  of  which 
are  riddles,  but  without  any  answers.  The 
riddles  are  about  the  phenomena  of  the  uni- 
verse, about  heaven  and  earth,  the  sun  and 
moon,  air,  clouds,  and  rain ;  about  the  year, 
the  seasons,  months,  days,  and  nights;  about 
the  human  voice,  self-consciousness,  life,  and 
death;  about  the  origin  of  the  first  creature, 
and  the  originator  of  the  universe.  The  im- 
plied suggestion  is  that  above  and  behind  the 
multitude  of  gods  there  is  only  one. 


46  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Though  the  beginnings  of  such  theosophic 
speculation  started  in  connection  with  the 
sacrifices,  yet  thought  turned  more  and  more 
to  the  whence,  why,  what,  and  whither  of 
all  subjects,  especially  the  mysteries  of  the 
universe  and  human  life.  While  to  ask  such 
questions  is  natural  and  may  be  helpful,  yet  the 
result  shows  that  such  speculation  was  harm- 
ful when  not  made  with  a  desire  and  an 
attempt  to  fit  men  to  meet  the  duties  of  life, 
but  simply  to  secure  metaphysical  consistency. 
The  outcome  of  an  immense  amount  of  acute 
thinking  by  a  large  body  of  quick-witted 
men  ended  in  a  consistent  impersonal  monism 
which  has  not  helped  men  to  love  God  and 
brother  men,  but  to  take  a  pessimistic  view 
of  life  and  to  neglect  their  duties.  The  last 
hymn  of  the  tenth  book  of  the  Rig  Veda,  the 
129th,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  produc- 
tions of  the  Indian  mind.  It  expresses  the 
climax  of  the  Vedic  pantheism,  and  well 
illustrates  the  religious  uselessness  of  what 
Indian  thinkers  had  come  to  consider  the 
height  of  religious  wisdom.  It  is  sometimes 
called  the  Creation  Hymn,  because  it  ex- 
presses the  Indian  thinker's  conclusion  about 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        47 

the  beginning  of  all  things.  A  Sanskrit 
scholar,  Dr.  John  Muir,  thus  translates  it: 
"  There  was  neither  non-entity  nor  entity, 
there  was  no  atmosphere,  nor  sky  above. 
What  enveloped  (all)?  Where,  in  the  re- 
ceptacle of  what  (was  it  contained)?  Was 
it  water,  the  profound  abyss?  Death  was 
not  then,  nor  immortality;  there  was  no  dis- 
tinction of  day  or  night.  That  One  breathed 
calmly,  self-supported;  there  was  nothing 
different  from  or  above  it.  In  the  beginning 
darkness  existed,  enveloped  in  darkness.  All 
this  was  undistinguishable  water.  That  One 
which  lay  void  and  wrapped  in  nothingness 
was  developed  by  the  power  of  fervour.  .  .  . 
Who  knows,  who  can  declare,  whence  has 
sprung,  whence  this  creation?  The  gods  are 
subsequent  to  the  development  of  this  (uni- 
verse) ;  who  then  knows  whence  it  arose? 
From  what  this  creation  arose,  and  whether 
any  one  made  it  or  not — he  who  in  the 
highest  heaven  is  its  ruler,  he  verily  knows, 
or  (even)  he  does  not  know."  The  conclu- 
sion of  Vedic  philosophical  speculation  is 
that  in  the  universe  there  is  only  one  substance 
which   is   impersonal    and   which    is   rightly 


48  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

termed  It  or  That.  This  was  perhaps  the 
supreme  illustration  of  the  sad  truth  of  the 
apostle's  word,  "  The  world  by  its  wisdom 
knew  not  God";  "professing  themselves  to 
be  wise,  they  became  fools."  Yet  they  were 
seeking  God  and  God  was  seeking  them. 
This  was  the  first  great  experience  in  India 
of  the  easy,  but  awful,  fall  which  comes  to 
the  pride  of  mere  intellectualism  in  religion 
when  divorced  from  the  heart.  Yet  this 
metaphysical  conclusion  of  absolute  unity  in 
the  universe  must  have  given  some  satisfac- 
tion to  Indian  thinkers;  otherwise  it  could 
not  have  remained  as  it  has  for  over  three 
thousand  years  the  last  word  of  Indian  specu- 
lation. 

But  on  our  assumption  that  the  living  God 
has  always  been  seeking  His  Indian  children, 
and  that  they  have  ever  been  groping  after 
Him,  we  may  be  sure  that  for  the  majority 
of  Indians  this  cold,  pantheistic  abstraction 
was  not  the  essence  of  religious  thought  and 
life.  It  must  have  been  the  conclusion  of 
the  philosophers  alone  which  they  called 
religion.  Even  late  Vedic  literature  gives 
traces  of  a  rising,  incipient  monotheism.     A 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        49 

hymn  very  near  the  pantheistic  Creation 
hymn  teaches  that  there  is  a  personal  god 
named  Prajapati,  the  lord  of  all  creatures. 
And  other  late  hymns  of  the  Rig  Veda  show 
the  thinkers'  sense  of  need  of  a  personal  in- 
terpretation of  the  universe  by  likening  it  to 
a  giant  man,  called  Purusha,  and  again  con- 
ceiving of  the  object  of  devotion  as  a  per- 
sonal god  called  Brihaspati  or  Brahmanas- 
pati,  meaning  the  lord  of  prayer  or  devotion. 
Also,  as  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  religions, 
so  in  Hinduism,  virtues  such  as  love  and 
w^isdom,  and  abstract  conceptions  such  as 
time,  are  semi-personified  and  then  adored. 
The  religious  heart  of  the  Indian  could  not 
remain  satisfied  with  an  impersonal  universe. 
God  spoke  to  the  Hindu  through  the  long- 
ings of  his  heart  for  a  personal  god  to  whom 
he  could  pray.  Though  consistent  Hindu 
speculation  makes  the  ultimate  Reality  of 
the  universe  an  impersonal  monism,  doubtless 
Hindus  long  ago  did  what  many  Hindus  now 
do,  viz. :  think  and  speak  as  if  the  ultimate 
It  were  a  person  with  a  loving,  gracious 
heart. 
We  now  pass  from  the  Vedic  period  to 


50  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

that  of  the  Upanishads,  which  are  mainly 
speculations  on  fundamental  questions.  They 
are  considered  the  most  important  part  of  the 
Vedanta,  i.e.  the  close  of  the  Vedas  or  sacred 
writings.  Yet  these  Upanishads  profess  to  be 
the  inspired  and  authoritative  interpretations 
of  the  four  Vedas.  In  fact  the  assumptions  and 
conclusions  of  these  philosophical  writings 
differ  greatly  from  those  of  the  books  which 
they  profess  to  interpret.  For  even  where 
some  sacred  book  is  theoretically  supposed  to 
be  the  final  authority  in  religion,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  appeal  to  life  is  truly  the  supreme 
test.  So  the  facts  of  life  led  multitudes  of 
Indians  and  some  of  the  best  thinkers  to  dis- 
regard the  teachings  of  the  Vedas  and  the 
speculations  of  the  Vedanta  school,  and 
to  hold  to  personal  and  human  con- 
clusions in  their  religious  thought  and 
practice. 

Death  has  been  a  perpetual  stimulant  to 
thought  and  reverence.  As  Job  asked,  "  If 
a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?"  so  Indians 
from  the  earliest  times  have  thought  about 
the  mystery  of  what  happens  to  the  one  who 
dies.     In  many  ways  these  ancient  Indians 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        5 1 

showed  their  belief  in  some  continuation  of 
the  spirit  Weapons  and  utensils  were  buried 
with  the  corpse.  Even  when  a  corpse  was 
burned,  for  a  length  of  time,  at  certain  dates, 
offerings  are  made  to  the  manes  of  the  de- 
parted. Paradises  of  various  gods  were  com- 
monly conceived  to  which  souls  went  in  the 
next  world.  Retribution  and  reward  were 
looked  for. 

But  endless  retribution  and  reward  for  a 
brief  life  in  this  world  did  not  seem  just  or 
probable.  So  speculation  turned  to  one  of 
the  most  controlling  ideas  of  Hinduism,  viz.: 
re-birth  and  re-death  through  many  cycles, 
i.e.  to  transmigration.  That  re-birth  and  re- 
death  are  haunting  conceptions  natural  to 
man  is  shown  by  belief  in  some  kind  of  trans- 
migration in  other  lands  than  India.  Even 
among  primitive  men  there  has  been  widely 
held  a  belief  that  not  only  man,  but  also 
animals,  plants,  and  some  inanimate  objects 
have  souls.  That  such  souls  or  lives  leave 
the  bodies  which  they  have  tenanted  is  ap- 
parent. That  they  re-enter  other  bodies  seems 
not  improbable.  In  dreams  and  hallucina- 
tions men   think   that  they   have  knowledge 


52  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

of  the  departed.  Naturally  the  condition  of 
one's  future  existence  is  assumed  to  depend 
on  one's  character  in  a  previous  state.  Under 
such  natural  tendencies,  since  light  and  im- 
mortality had  not  then  been  brought  to  light 
through  the  gospel  of  Christ,  in  some  infer- 
ential way  Indians  came  to  believe  in  trans- 
migration, and  in  its  accompanying  doctrine 
of  Karma.  The  doctrine  of  Karma  is  that 
one's  present  state  of  existence  is  absolutely 
and  exactly  the  fruit  of  his  actions  or  char- 
acter in  a  previous  state  of  existence,  and 
his  state  in  the  next  stage  will  be  exactly  the 
fruit  of  his  actions  or  character  in  the  present 
stage. 

In  this  conception,  with  all  its  error  and 
unsatisfactoriness,  we  can  see  both  the  influ- 
ence of  a  righteous  God  and  the  dimness  of 
vision  of  His  Indian  children.  For  the 
Karma  doctrine  is  India's  chief  response  to 
conscience.  In  some  respects  it  was  an  up- 
ward movement  in  religion,  because  this  doc- 
trine recognizes  man  as  having  some  measure 
of  personality.  The  Karma-transmigration 
doctrine  also  recognizes  a  moral  connection 
between  man's  character  in  one  stage  of  ex- 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        53 

istence  and  the  next.  Yet  despite  this  moral 
value  and  this  assurance  of  continued  exist- 
ence, the  doctrine  of  transmigration  has  not 
been  satisfying  to  the  best  minds  of  India. 
How  this  is  so  will  be  analyzed  in  the  third 
lecture.  The  good  news  of  God's  gracious 
help  to  the  weak  and  erring,  which  is  the 
chief  revelation  of  the  Christ,  had  not  then 
become  known  to  Hindus.  So  in  the  Karma- 
transmigration  doctrine  Indian  thinkers 
thought  out  the  most  thorough-going  and  far- 
reaching  doctrine  of  retribution  which  any 
religion  has  ever  taught.  But,  because  it 
made  absolute,  unavoidable  retribution  the 
only  object  of  this  world,  and  in  its  con- 
sistency left  no  room  for  grace,  the  Indian 
mind  revolted,  and  one  of  the  two  most 
momentous  and  sweeping  religious  changes 
that  have  ever  occurred  took  place  in 
India. 

In  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  doubtless  under 
the  influence  of  the  divine  Spirit,  there  arose 
in  India  a  new  religious  leader  to  protest 
against  the  two  most  unsatisfactory  features 
of  the  religion  then  prevalent  in  India.  These 
evils  were,  first,  an  unethical  ceremonial  and 


54  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

sacrificial  system,  and  second,  an  unethical 
and  depressing  intellectuaiism.  The  new  re- 
ligious teacher  was  Gautama,  who  was  after- 
wards called  the  Buddha  or  enlightened  oae. 
After  twelve  years  of  dissipation  he  devoted 
himself  to  the  study  of  religion.  Finding 
the  teaching  of  the  Brahmans  unsatisfactory, 
he  devoted  himself  to  rigorous  asceticism. 
Finding  asceticism  vain,  he  resolved  by  medi- 
tation to  discover  the  secret  of  life  and  of 
the  universe.  After  long  contemplation  he 
believed  that  he  had  discovered  the  cause 
of  misery  and  the  means  of  counteracting  it. 
He  had  come  to  see  that  the  essence  of  true 
religion  is  not  in  ceremonials,  not  in  asceti- 
cism, not  in  speculation,  but  in  possessing 
spiritual  characteristics  and  in  living  a  good 
life.  When  he  clearly  saw  this  he  was  termed 
the  enlightened  one,  the  Buddha,  and  he 
rightly  and  immediately  sought  to  do  his 
utmost  to  let  his  light  shine  and  to  lead  oth- 
ers to  follow  the  better  way  which  he  called 
"  the  middle  way,"  i.e.  the  mean  between 
mechanical  ceremonialism  and  arid  intel- 
lectuaiism. According  to  the  Buddha,  on 
the  one  hand  religion  is  not,  as  the  priests 


INDIA'S   EARLIER   RELIGIOUS   HISTORY         55 

taught,  painful  and  endless  repetitions  of 
ceremonies  and  sacrifices,  nor  on  the  other 
hand  is  religion,  as  the  thinkers  taught, 
speculation  as  to  what  am  I?  whence  have 
I  come?  whither  do  I  go?  what  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  universe?  is  there  or  is  there  not 
a  god?  if  there  is  a  god,  is  he  personal  or 
impersonal?  is  he  outside  or  inside  the  uni- 
verse, or  is  he  only  It? 

The  Buddha  was  right  in  saying  that  in 
religion,  not  ceremonials,  nor  speculation, 
but  a  pure  heart  and  a  simple,  kindly  life 
are  the  important  things.  But  when  he 
tried  to  point  out  the  way  by  which  the  pure 
heart  and  the  simple  life  are  to  be  secured, 
he  misunderstood  the  meaning  of  life.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Buddha  there  are  four  simple 
principles  for  the  middle  or  true  way  of  re- 
ligion, viz.:  first,  belief  that  misery  always 
accompanies  existence;  second,  the  cause  of 
misery  is  desire;  third,  misery  can  be  escaped 
only  by  the  cessation  of  desire;  fourth,  de- 
sire can  be  escaped  by  following  what  is 
sometimes  called  the  four-fold  and  some- 
times the  eight-fold  path,  the  essence  of 
which  is  a  pure  heart  and  a  pure  life.    The 


56  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

teaching  of  the  Buddha  was  an  upward 
movement  for  both  religious  thinking  and 
life. 

While  the  Buddhist  reform  is  one  of  the 
greatest  illustrations  of  the  might  of  ideas, 
perhaps  the  most  impressive  lesson  of  that 
whole  movement  is  the  power  of  a  noble 
person,  who  illustrates  in  his  life  the  purer 
ideal  which  he  teaches.  In  the  history  of 
the  world  next  to  the  instance  of  the  Christ, 
Gautama  Buddha  is  the  most  impressive  ex- 
ample of  how  a  religious  leader,  with  a  pure 
ideal  to  which  he  conforms,  can  change  the 
religion   and   life  of  myriads   for  centuries. 

Probably  the  Buddhist  religion  is  also  the 
most  painfully  impressive  example  of  how 
a  great  movement  with  a  great  leader  can, 
from  its  inspiring  beginning,  be  degraded 
into  mechanical  lifelessness,  and  of  how  in- 
adequate is  any  religion  which  has  no  ade- 
quate conception  and  living  revelation  of 
God.  Christians  have  not  always  considered 
the  Buddhist  revolt  against  Brahmanism  as 
more  or  less  due  to  the  help  of  God.  But 
they  uniformly  consider  that  a  religious 
reformation  in  Palestine  at  almost  the  same 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        57 

time  under  the  greatest  of  Hebrew  prophets 
was  unquestionably  inspired  of  God.  Yet 
the  greater  Isaiah  was  a  contemporary  of 
Gautama  Buddha.  And  fundamentally  the 
protests  of  that  Isaiah  and  of  the  Buddha 
were  against  the  same  religious  evils,  viz.: 
an  unethical  formalism  in  religion.  Both 
taught  that  rites  and  sacrifices  are  not  true 
religion,  that  they  are  not  only  of  no  value 
in  themselves,  but  on  the  contrary  that,  un- 
less springing  from  a  good  heart  and  accom- 
panied by  kindness  to  fellow  men,  they  are 
evil.  Yet  one  fundamental,  far-reaching 
difference  between  the  teaching  of  Isaiah 
and  of  the  Buddha  has  caused  immense  dif- 
ference in  the  results  of  the  teaching  of  the 
two.  Isaiah  was  inspired  by  the  conviction 
of  appointment  by  a  personal  God,  and  he 
exalted  that  God.  The  Buddha  had  nothing 
to  say  about  God.  Some  persons  interpret 
him  as  denying  the  existence  of  God.  Others 
understand  that  he  only  disregarded  God 
and  sought  to  make  religion  merely  a  mo- 
rality. That  is  my  opinion.  However,  the 
Buddha's  teaching,  enforced  by  his  own 
example,    that   a   pure   heart   and    a   life   of 


58  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

service  to  fellow  men  are  essentials  of  true 
religion,  wrought  immense  good.  It  greatly 
lessened  the  extent  and  the  power  of  cere- 
monialism, sacerdotalism,  animal  sacrifices, 
the  pride  of  excessive  intellectualism  and  of 
caste,  and  promoted  simple  living  and  help- 
fulness to  brother  men. 

But  men  must  pray  and  must  reverence 
what  they  deem  the  divine.  So  the  Buddha 
had  hardly  passed  away  before  the  arrest 
and  degeneracy  of  his  teachings  began.  He 
had  distinctly  taught  that  he  desired  no 
reverence  for  himself,  but  only  that  all  men 
should  attain  to  truth  and  to  the  right  goal  of 
their  being  by  following  the  middle  path. 
However,  soon  his  disciples,  and  then  their 
followers,  and  later  Buddhists  everywhere 
very  considerably  misunderstood  and  mis- 
applied his  teachings.  Following  the  easy 
downward  trend  of  human  nature,  they  be- 
gan to  do  the  things  which  he  had  forbidden, 
viz.:  practically  to  adore  him  and  to  place 
importance  on  ceremonies.  At  first  in  the 
worthy  effort  to  serve  men  and  to  spread 
truth,  great  numbers  of  Buddhists  went  far 
and   wide    as    missionaries.      But    later,    the 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        59 

chief  aim  of  the  most  devoted  Buddhists 
came  to  be  to  abjure  the  world  and  to  live  for 
themselves.  Monks  and  nuns  were  deemed 
to  be  the  most  holy  men  and  women.  So 
long  as  missionary  zeal  and  activity  remained 
in  Buddhism,  the  system  retained  virility. 
Like  all  religions,  Buddhism  developed  dif- 
fering and  somewhat  warring  sects.  An 
additional  fatal  defect  in  Buddhism  was 
holding  to  the  Brahmanical  doctrine  of 
Karma  and  transmigration.  In  Buddhism 
the  absence  of  any  recognition  of  God  pre- 
vents the  possibility  of  worship  and  true 
prayer,  and  the  Karma  system  practically 
takes  motive  and  inspiration  out  of  life. 
Those  two  fatal  deficiencies  and  the  down- 
ward pull  of  the  flesh  brought  to  Buddhism 
the  usual  cycle  of  arrest,  degeneracy,  and 
vain  attempts  at  reform.  In  a  thousand 
years  Buddhism  attained  practical  Nirvana 
in  the  land  of  its  birth.  There  are  to-day 
in  India  proper  more  Indian  Christians  than 
Buddhists. 

At  about  the  same  period,  probably  in  the 
sixth  century  B.C.,  there  arose,  under  a 
leader  known  as  Mahavira,  a  religious  move- 


6o  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ment  allied  to  Buddhism,  known  as  Jainism. 
That  two  such  efforts  protesting  against 
Brahmanism  developed  nearly  simultaneously 
shows  the  legitimate  and  widespread  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  excessive  ceremonialism 
of  the  priests  and  the  excessive  intellectualism 
of  the  thinkers.  At  its  beginning  the  appeal 
and  power  of  Jainism  lay  in  its  emphasis  on 
two  great  truths,  the  duty  of  refraining  from 
injuring  life  in  any  form,  and  the  rewarding 
value  of  a  simple  life.  Non-injury  to  even 
humble  animal  life  has  always  been  the 
prominent  doctrine  of  the  Jain  religion. 
Very  likely  it  was  the  practice  of  excessive 
animal  sacrifices  current  when  Mahavira 
started  the  Jain  movement  that  made  the 
doctrine  of  non-injury  the  principal  element 
in  this  religion.  We  believe  that  it  is  the 
influence  of  God  which  makes  men  more 
considerate  to  animals  to-day  than  they  once 
were.  Why  not  believe  that  it  was  He  who 
helped  the  founder  of  the  Jain  system  to  his 
emphasis  on  kindness  to  animals?  And  why 
was  it  not  from  God  that  the  impulse  for  a 
simple  and  kindly  life  came  to  Mahavira? 
Then  why  did  arrest  and  degeneracy  come 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        6 1 

to  this  Jain  religion?  The  same  reasons  that 
brought  those  experiences  to  other  religions. 
Theologically  there  are  the  same  two  fatal 
defects  in  Jainism  that  there  are  in  Bud- 
dhism, viz. :  the  absence  of  recognition  of, 
and  reverence  for  a  personal  God,  and  the 
doctrine  of  metempsychosis.  Where  there  is 
not  a  clear  adequate  conception  of  a  per- 
sonal, righteous,  loving  God,  the  world  does 
not  get  a  right  conception  of  man,  and  where 
there  is  an  inadequate  conception  of  man, 
there  is  an  inadequate  conception  of  God. 
Where  these  defects  exist  arrest,  degeneracy, 
ceremonialism,  sacerdotalism  must  and  do 
come.  Thus,  while  the  Jain  community  in 
India  numbers  about  a  million,  that  is,  about 
one-third  as  many  as  Indian  Christians,  and 
while,  as  a  class,  they  are  wealthy,  their 
religion  is  one  of  formalism  and  is  unpro- 
gressive,  with  no  missionary  zeal  or  effort, 
and,  therefore,  it  has  no  appreciable  value 
for  India  or  the  world. 

From  ten  to  fifteen  centuries  stretch  across 
the  interval  from  the  animism  of  the  aborig- 
ines to  the  ethical  revival  of  religion  by  the 
Buddha.      Ten    centuries    cover    the    period 


62  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS   HISTORY 

from  the  rise  of  Buddhism  till  its  practical 
disappearance  from  the  land  of  its  birth. 
How  many  vicissitudes  religion  underwent 
in  those  millenniums!  One's  spirit  will  be 
hopeful  or  depressed  according  to  his  con- 
ception of  God.  One,  like  the  writer,  who 
has  an  abiding  conviction  that  God  has  ever 
been  what  the  Christ  revealed  Him  to  be, 
the  Father  of  the  spirits  of  all  men,  will 
believe  that  God  has  always  done  all  that 
at  any  time  He  wisely  could  for  every  human 
child,  and  has  mercifully  borne  with  human 
limitations,  mistakes,  and  sins.  Such  a  be- 
liever will  more  than  ever  revere  the  sublime 
patience  of  the  all-powerful  One  to  whom 
a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day,  and  will 
feel  sure  that  there  is  coming  a  day  which 
will  be  as  a  thousand  years  in  its  fruition 
of  God's  long,  paternal  search  for  men,  and 
men's  pathetic  groping  after  God.  Those 
who  have  an  exhilarating,  grateful  experi- 
ence of  what  the  Christ  is  doing  for  their 
own  lives  will  more  earnestly  sympathize 
with  their  brothers  who,  without  Christ's  aid, 
stretch  eager  hands  to  God  and  who  in 
their  search  often  marvellously  sacrifice  per- 


INDIA'S  EARLIER  RELIGIOUS  LIISTORY        63 

sonal  comfort.  Such  Christians  will  gladly 
and  eagerly  labour  to  hasten  the  day  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  fulfiller  of  all  partial 
intimations  of  God,  the  author  and  the  fin- 
isher of  the  faith  of  all  men.  Indeed  not 
only  all  Indian  Christians,  but  also  not  a  few 
broad-minded  non-Christians  in  India  are 
appealing  to  Christian  missionaries  to  help 
in  sympathetically,  and  therefore  in  correctly 
and  hopefully,  interpreting  the  religions  of 
India,  and  in  giving  to  them  and  their  coun- 
trymen the  Christian  interpretation  of  life. 
The  most  sympathetic  interpreters  of  God's 
dealings  with  men  have  always  been,  and 
must  always  be,  the  most  hopeful  of  His 
co-workers. 


II 

AN  INTERPRETIVE  OUTLINE  OF  INDIA'S  LATER 
RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

IN  the  former  lecture  there  was  attempted 
a  brief  interpretive  outline  of  India's 
earlier  religious  history  from  pre-Aryan 
times  till  the  rise  and  decay  of  the  Buddhist 
and  Jain  religions.  It  was  claimed  that  four 
words  epitomized  the  characteristics  of  the 
history  of  thought  and  life  in  India,  viz.: 
progress,  arrest,  degeneracy,  and  reform,  re- 
peated over  and  over  again.  It  was  assumed 
that  all  progress  is  due  to  the  inspiration  of 
God,  because  He  is  the  prime  agent  in  all 
upward  movements,  and  that  the  repeated 
arrest  and  degeneracy  in  the  various  religions 
of  India  have  been  due  to  a  struggle  of  the 
flesh  against  the  spirit,  such  as  has  been 
carried  on  in  every  religion,  including  the 
Christian,  in  which  the  flesh  often  gains  the 
victory.     I  hope  that  that  review  of  India's 

64 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  65 

earlier  religious  history  justified  and  illus- 
trated the  assumptions  underlying  this  course 
of  lectures.  An  interpretive  outline  of  India's 
later  religious  history,  covering  about  eleven 
centuries,  may  be  still  more  satisfying. 

In  the  sixth  century  B.C.  there  began 
two  notable  protests  against  the  ceremonial- 
ism and  excessive  intellectualism  of  the 
priests  and  against  the  unbrotherliness  of 
caste,  viz.:  Buddhism  and  Jainism.  At  first 
both  had  some  enthusiasm  for  humanity  and 
were  missionary  organizations  and  efforts. 
But  both  soon  suflfered  arrest  and  degeneracy. 
Both  largely  became  ceremonial  and  formal. 
Both  gave  excessive  value  and  prominence 
to  doctrines  as  the  marks  of  their  truth  and 
excellence,  while  showing  less  spiritual  in- 
terest in  the  betterment  of  the  world.  Both 
became  less  inspirational  for  lives  of  kindly 
service  to  fellow  men.  The  Jain  religion 
has  continued  to  the  present  day,  and  has 
about  a  million  adherents.  But  it  is  un- 
progressive  and  cannot  be  reckoned  an  im- 
portant religious  force  for  India  or  the 
world.  Buddhism  had  real  value  for  the 
world,    and    therefore    spread    far    through 


66  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

eastern  and  southern  Asia,  and  still  retains 
influence  in  some  large  areas.  Yet,  though 
once  becoming  the  paramount  religion  in 
India,  it  suffered  steady  decline  and  after 
continuing  about  a  thousand  years,  it  prac- 
tically became  lifeless,  and  now  for  about 
fifteen  hundred  years  it  has  been  a  dead  re- 
ligion in  the  land  of  its  birth.  There  are 
more  Indian  Christians  in  India  proper  than 
there  are  followers  of  the  faith  of  the  Bud- 
dha. The  few  Buddhists  who  remain  in 
India  proper  are  on  the  northeast  borders 
toward  Thibet  and  Burma.  The  town  of 
Buddha  Gaya,  the  place  where  Gautama  be- 
came Buddha,  i.e.  the  enlightened  one,  has 
for  centuries  been  in  the  possession  of 
haughty  Brahmans,  who  daily  teach  and 
practise  the  opposite  of  what  the  enlightened 
one  taught  and  practiced. 

At  the  time  of  the  Parliament  of  Reli- 
gions in  Chicago  an  earnest  Buddhist  leader 
from  Ceylon  came  to  the  United  States  and 
from  a  good  many  sympathetic  people  in 
this  country  secured  considerable  funds,  with 
which  he  made  vain  legal  efforts  to  wrest 
from   the   possession   of   Brahmans   into   the 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS   HISTORY  67 

hands  of  Buddhist  managers  that  sacred 
starting  place  of  the  Buddhist  faith.  There 
were  practically  no  Buddhists  in  India  who 
could,  or  would,  take  interest  in  this  pe- 
cuniary and  legal  crusade  for  the  birthplace 
of  their  religion.  So  the  funds  which  were 
uselessly  exhausted  in  the  efifort  had  to  come 
mainly  from  America. 

Modern  Hinduism  may  be  said  to  begin 
in  the  eighth  century  of  the  Christian  era. 
Indian  history  sheds  painfully  little  light  on 
the  thought  and  life  in  the  seven  centuries 
preceding  the  eighth,  during  which  period 
Buddhism  had  been  declining  and  was  finally 
replaced  by  modern  Hinduism.  Yet  many 
of  the  ideas  and  practices  of  Buddhism  have 
been  incorporated  into  Hinduism.  Scholars 
consider  that  since  the  eighth  century  Hin- 
duism has  been  a  mixture  of  the  super- 
stitious rites  of  the  non-Aryan  tribes,  of  the 
simple  religion  of  Vedic  times,  of  the 
pantheistic  doctrines  of  the  Upanishads,  and 
of  the  mild  doctrines  of  Buddhism,  all  di- 
rected by  the  brain-power  of  the  Brahmans 
in  the  marvellous  social  organization  of 
caste. 


68  India's  religious  history 

In  the  development  of  this  complex  system 
called  modern  Hinduism  the  laws  of  human 
evolution  have  ever  been  at  work,  and  those 
laws  are  essentially  the  two-fold  ones  of, 
first,  the  power  of  God  at  work  drawing  the 
human  spirit  toward  Himself,  and  second, 
the  lower  tendencies  of  mankind  pulling 
men's  thoughts  and  lives  downward.  The 
lower  tendencies  of  man  appear  in  the  super- 
stitious and  sensual  elements  which  make 
up  almost  the  whole  of  the  non-Aryan  re- 
ligions; in  the  pride  of  excessive  intellectual- 
ism,  which  has  made  many  thinkers  lose  a 
sense  of  reality  in  life,  while  straining  after 
metaphysical  consistency;  in  the  spirit-killing 
literalism  and  pride  of  ceremonialism  in  the 
priests,  and  in  the  iron-clad,  unprogressive 
caste  system.  The  uplifting  and  renewing 
spirit  of  God  appears  in  the  earnest  search 
for  ultimate  reality,  in  the  conviction  that  by 
loving  devotion  to  a  personal  God  the  be- 
liever is  saved,  and  in  the  noble  charity 
which  characterized  early  Buddhism. 

Under  the  Brahmans  and  some  lower- 
caste  leaders,  when  Hinduism  sought  to  be- 
come, and  practically  did  become,  a  national 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  69 

religion,  it  had  to  provide  religious  ideas 
and  ceremonies  for  the  non-Aryan,  as  well  as 
the  Aryan  sections  of  the  people;  and  there 
has  gradually  been  a  larger  and  larger  mix- 
ture of  those  races.  Some  ethnologists  esti- 
mate that  now  there  are  not  more  than  five 
per  cent,  of  pure  Aryans  in  India.  There- 
fore it  is  not  strange  that,  as  in  Israel  when 
Solomon  and  other  kings  took  wives  from 
the  non-Jewish  peoples,  those  women  brought 
into  the  royal  court  and  into  the  temple  the 
religions  of  the  peoples  from  whom  they 
had  come,  so  in  India,  when  the  races  lived 
side  by  side  and  more  or  less  intermingled, 
their  religions  also  should  coalesce.  There- 
fore, as  stated  in  the  former  lecture,  among 
the  sixty  millions  of  people  who  are  pure  or 
nearly  pure  descendants  of  the  aborigines 
there  still  exist  many  of  the  ideas  and  prac- 
tices of  the  pre-Aryan  religions,  and  these 
characteristics  have  also  considerably  blended 
with  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  the  masses 
and  even  of  the  intelligent  classes.  Hence 
tree  worship,  and  respect  for  various  sym- 
bols of  creative  power,  and  manifold  super- 
stitions  and   impure   practices   are   common 


yo  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

among  many  of  the  multitudinous  sects  of 
modern  Hinduism.  The  simple  religion  of 
Vedic  times  made  its  contribution  to  the 
Hinduism  of  the  present  period  by  the  as- 
sumption, generally  accepted  by  most  sects, 
that  the  Vedas  are  the  final  authority  in  re- 
ligious matters.  The  simple  masses  have 
been  encouraged  to  continue  to  ask  from 
many  gods  the  same  material  blessings  which 
the  early  Aryans  sought.  The  thinkers  of 
the  pantheistic  school  felt  the  old  necessity 
of  absolute  unity  in  the  explanation  of  the 
universe,  and  for  themselves,  accepted  an 
impersonal  monism,  while  recognizing  that 
the  masses  must  have  a  personal  god  to 
whom  they  could  pray.  Under  the  influence 
of  Buddhism,  animal  sacrifice  greatly  less- 
ened, and  especially  the  spiritual  equality  of 
all  men  was  recognized  and  considerably 
practised.  In  consequence,  for  the  last  twelve 
hundred  years  many  of  the  reformers  and 
saints  of  Hinduism  have  been  men  of  other 
than   Brahman   caste. 

In  the  period  now  under  consideration, 
namely,  from  the  eighth  to  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  first  apostle  who  helped  to  make  mod- 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  7 1 

ern  Hinduism  what  it  is  was  a  Brahman  of 
Central  India  named  Kumarila.  The  source 
of  his  power  was  an  attack  on  the  weakest 
point  of  Buddhism.  The  Buddha  never  spoke 
of  God.  Kumarila  placed  emphasis  on  the 
existence  and  activity  of  an  all-powerful  god 
as  the  cause  of  the  existence,  continuance, 
and  dissolution  of  the  world.  From  whom 
did  this  reformer  get  that  conviction  of  a 
god  at  work  among  men,  if  not  from  God 
Himself?  Kumarila  bequeathed  religious 
leadership  to  his  great  disciple  S'ankara,  who 
probably  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighth  century. 

Next  to  the  Buddha  this  S'ankara  is  the 
most  influential  religious  teacher  who  ever 
lived  in  India.  More  than  any  other  man, 
he  is  the  maker  of  modern  Hinduism.  Yet, 
like  our  Lord,  he  died  when  he  was  only  a 
little  over  thirty  years  of  age.  His  chief 
intellectual  work  in  Hinduism  was  the  per- 
fecting and  popularizing  the  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  the  divine.  Not  more  insistent  or 
active  in  preaching  the  unity  of  the  divine 
was  Mohammed  than  was  S'ankara.  On  in- 
tellectual Hinduism  for  twelve  centuries  this 


72  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

man  impressed  the  doctrine  of  impersonal 
monism.  Yet  he  also  taught  the  need  for 
men  generally  of  a  personal  God.  Of  his 
influence  Sir  William  Hunter  says:  "It  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  since  his  short 
life  in  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  every 
new  Hindu  sect  has  had  to  start  with  a 
personal  god.  He  addressed  himself  to  the 
high-caste  philosophers  on  the  one  hand  and 
to  the  common  multitude  on  the  other.  He 
left  behind  as  the  two-fold  result  of  his  life's 
work  a  compact  Brahman  sect  and  a  popular 
religion."  For  the  intelligent  Brahman 
S'ankara  taught  that  there  is  but  one  supreme 
and  inscrutable  first  cause  to  be  worshipped, 
not  by  sacrifice,  but  by  meditation.  For  the 
common  man  he  allowed  the  worship  of  any 
god,  but  preferably  Shiva,  by  any  rites  pre- 
scribed by  the  Vedas  or  by  any  later  teacher 
who  was  deemed  orthodox.  Especially  he 
developed  one  of  the  two  popular  forms  of 
modern  Hinduism,  the   Shiva  cult. 

The  principle  of  accommodation  carried  to 
excess  by  S'ankara  and  by  Hindu  leaders  to 
this  day  is  one  main  cause  of  the  power  and 
of  the  weakness  of  Hinduism.     Probably  in 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  73 

no  religion  in  the  world  is  it  open  to  any 
follower  so  freely  to  think  as  he  will,  and 
so  freely  to  worship  and  live  as  he  will,  with 
one  most  stringent  exception,  viz. :  he  abso- 
lutely must  not  disregard  caste  regulations. 
This  attempt  by  an  exceptionally  acute  and 
forceful  man  to  validate  an  esoteric  religion 
for  thinkers  on  one  principle,  and  to  vali- 
date for  the  masses  an  exoteric  religion  incon- 
sistent with  the  controlling  principle  of  the 
first  system,  has  never  done  either  class  genu- 
ine service.  It  tends  to  make  the  thinkers 
cold-hearted,  hypocritical,  proud.  It  pre- 
vents the  masses  from  getting  from  the  more 
gifted  class  the  enlightenment,  sympathy,  and 
respect  which  they  need,  and  tends  to  push 
them  farther  into  superstition  and  formality. 
This  is  another  illustration  of  how  an  up- 
ward movement  in  Hinduism  suffered  arrest 
and  degeneracy. 

S'ankara  and  his  Vedantic  school  felt  the 
need  of  unity  in  an  explanation  of  the  uni- 
verse. They  thought  that  they  had  found 
such  unity  in  the  Karma  transmigration  doc- 
trine, by  which  the  past  is  absolutely  con- 
trolling for   the   future,    and   by   which   the 


74  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

world  is  to  be  deemed  unreal.  On  this  as- 
sumption, metaphysical  consistency  led  them 
to  accept  impersonal  monism  as  the  explana- 
tion of  everything.  Yet  because  man's  heart 
craves,  and  must  have  a  personal  god,  these 
pantheistic  thinkers  allowed  and  popularized 
a  personal  god.  For  lack  of  true  belief  in 
a  personal  god  and  for  lack  of  a  perfect 
human  incarnation  of  the  divine,  such  as  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  is,  they  were  quite  con- 
tent to  let  the  masses  believe  what  they 
themselves  believed  to  be  unreal,  and  to  sink 
lower  and  lower  into  ignorance  of  truth  and 
into  unethical  practices.  In  Buddhism  there 
had  been  neglect  of  the  soul — the  soul  of  the 
universe,  i.e.  God,  and  neglect  of  a  genuine 
soul  in  man  because  the  transmigration  idea 
does  not  give  room  for  a  loving  free  agent. 
The  Vedantic  school  went  to  the  opposite 
extreme  and  was  supremely  interested  in  the 
metaphysics  of  the  supreme  Spirit  and  its 
relation  to  the  universe  and  to  human  beings. 
The  weakness  and  nemesis  of  this  system 
lay  in  its  neglect  of  the  human  heart  and 
conscience  as  the  most  important  factors  in 
religion. 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  75 

By  contrast,  the  strength  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Christian  religions  has  been  their  em- 
phasis on  a  personal,  righteous,  loving  God, 
who  influences  the  heart  and  conscience  of 
men  to  live  ethical  lives  of  service.  Oh,  if 
the  Buddha  and  if  S'ankara  had  known  a 
personal  God,  who  is  the  Father  of  the 
spirits  of  all  human  children,  and  if,  in  view 
of  that  Father's  attitude  to  His  children, 
those  leaders  had  made  loving  service  of 
brother  men  the  way  of  life  for  all  who  would 
be  filial  to  their  divine  Father,  how  different 
would  have  been  the  religious  history  of  their 
country!  But  the  fulness  of  time  for  India 
had  not  then  come. 

S'ankara  and  his  followers  gave  to  the 
masses  the  Shiva  cult,  which  has  since  been 
one  of  the  two  chief  religions  of  modern 
India.  In  accordance  with  the  principle  of 
excessive  accommodation,  Shiva  was  to  be 
to  each  worshipper  that  which  the  wor- 
shipper sought.  He  had  a  two-fold  aspect, 
one  philosophical,  in  which  he  is  engaged 
in  profound  thought,  is  both  the  Destroyer 
and  Reproducer  of  everything,  and  the  em- 
blem of  reproduction  is  his  special  symbol; 


76  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

the  other  aspect  is  one  which  makes  him  and 
his  goddess  Kali,  objects  of  terror,  awaken- 
ing fear  in  men  and  stimulating  them  to 
efforts  for  propitiation.  Similarly  the  ritual 
and  worship  of  Shiva  is  two-fold.  For  the 
higher  classes  the  worship  is  one  of  medita- 
tion without  rites.  For  the  masses,  Shiva 
and  Kali  worship  is  one  which  requires 
countless  offerings  and  sacrifices.  Later  in 
this  lecture  I  shall  describe  what  till  now 
are  the  sad  features  of  one  large  section  of 
the  Shivaite  religion. 

When  the  Shaiva  religion  came  into  the 
unsatisfactoriness  of  its  two-fold  development 
we  might  anticipate  that,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  God,  some  protest  and  reform  would 
be  made.  These  began  in  the  Vishnu  cult, 
which  became  prominent  two  or  three  cen- 
turies after  S'ankara,  i.e.  in  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries  A.D.  This  Vaishnava  reli- 
gion is  now  one  of  the  two  principal  religions 
of  India.  Life  and  history  are  robbed  of 
value  by  the  doctrine  of  an  impersonal 
monism  and  its  accompanying  doctrine  of 
Karma  and  transmigration.  The  experience 
of  life  discredits  such  a  system.     So,   as   I 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  77 

believe  under  God's  influence,  there  arose  a 
truer  and  more  helpful  form  of  religion, 
which  is  called  the  way  of  salvation  by 
loving  devotion  to  a  personal  god,  i.e.  the 
bhaktimarga. 

While  this  type  of  religion  was  specially 
popularized  and  spread  from  the  twelfth 
century  on,  its  beginnings  were  long  before 
that  time.  The  most  important  religious 
book  of  India,  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  i.e.  the 
Divine  Song,  inculcates  this  kind  of  religion. 
Scholars  believe  that  this  poem,  as  we  have  it, 
has  been  edited  and  added  to,  like  other 
ancient  religious  books.  Its  earlier  part 
was  composed  some  centuries  before  the 
Christian  era.  Through  additions  and  modi- 
fications it  now  represents  a  poem  com- 
pleted some  centuries  after  the  Christian 
era.  So  it  does  not  contain  one  consistent 
teaching.  As  it  stands,  it  probably  shows 
an  attempt  to  modify  a  religion  of  faith  in  a 
personal  and  ethical  deity  by  additions  of  a 
pantheistic  nature.  Its  older  and  most  satis- 
factory teaching  is  that  a  personal  deity 
named  Krishna,  who  manifests  himself  in 
the  form  of  a  human  hero,  puts  forth  spirit- 


jS  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ual  teaching,  and  demands  of  his  disciple 
the  performance  of  duty,  but  above  all  re- 
quires faith,  love,  and  resignation  toward 
himself.  By  a  special  act  of  grace,  Krishna 
reveals  himself  as  the  divine  one,  and  prom- 
ises to  his  faithful  disciple  after  death  ad- 
mission to  his  presence  and  fellowship  with 
himself.  Disregarding  the  pantheistic  addi- 
tions to  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  the  substance  of 
its  doctrine  of  salvation  by  loving  devotion  to 
god  is  substantially  as  follows:  There  is  a  god 
who  is  a  conscious,  eternal,  almighty  being. 
The  souls  of  men  are  distinct  from  God  and 
are  imperishable.  All  of  God's  actions  are 
for  the  good  of  the  universe.  Sin  often  grows 
rampant  among  men.  Therefore,  whenever 
justice  declines  and  injustice  increases,  God 
assumes  new  phenomenal  forms  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  good  and  the  destruction  of 
the  evil,  in  order  to  establish  the  right.  The 
relation  of  God  to  the  world  and  men  is  not, 
as  assumed  by  the  Karma  school,  solely 
determined  by  the  law  of  retribution, 
but  by  love  to  those  who  know  Him 
and  are  sincerely  devoted  to  Him.  He 
delivers  from  sin  those  who  take  refuge  in 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  79 

Him.  So  salvation  comes  by  the  grace  of 
God. 

The  substance  of  the  older  part  of  this 
poem  and  its  chief  religious  teachings  are 
unquestionably  older  than  the  Christian  era 
and  therefore  cannot  have  been  borrowed 
from  the  New  Testament,  as  some  persons 
have  imagined  from  its  similarity  to  the 
Christian  teaching  of  salvation  by  the  grace 
of  God's  influence  on  the  hearts  of  those 
who  practice  loving  devotion  to  Him.  Must 
we  not  ascribe  this  belief  and  this  teaching 
to  the  influence  of  God's  Spirit?  Is  it 
strange  that  the  Bhagavad  Gita  is  a  book 
much  prized  and  read  by  modern  Hindus? 
Yet  this  elevated  teaching  has  been  sadly 
handicapped  by  the  pantheistic  additions 
which  confuse  its  teaching  and  which  hinder 
Hindus  from  understanding  and  accepting 
its  best  spiritual  elements. 

The  poem  is  further  weakened  by  a  de- 
fect in  its  practical  teaching.  In  it  two  ways 
of  salvation  are  given  and  contrasted.  One 
way,  like  that  of  pantheistic  Hinduism,  con- 
sists in  withdrawal  from  the  world  and 
search   for  knowledge   by  meditation.     The 


8o  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

other  way  consists  in  actions  conformable 
to  duty,  but  free  from  desire.  The  poem 
plainly  teaches  that  the  old  Hindu  idea  is 
correct,  which  teaches  that  a  true  salvation 
is  deliverance  from  the  cycle  of  existence, 
to  be  secured  by  meditation  in  isolation  from 
the  world;  yet  that  there  is  also  a  second 
way  of  salvation,  viz.:  by  right  actions  per- 
formed without  a  desire  for  reward.  This 
confusing  two-fold  doctrine  and  the  philo- 
sophical cast  of  the  poem  prevent  it  from 
being  like  the  Bible,  a  plain,  understandable 
book  both  for  the  uneducated  and  the  edu- 
cated. 

So,  while  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by 
loving  devotion  began  some  centuries  before 
Christ  and  received  formal  exposition  in  a 
remarkable  poem,  yet  the  widespread  ac- 
ceptance of  the  doctrine  began  in  the  twelfth 
century  A.D.  through  the  influence  of  a  Brah- 
man reformer  in  Southern  India,  named 
Ramanuja.  He  revolted  from  the  thorough- 
going impersonal  monism  of  S'ankara,  and 
introduced  a  more  human  type  of  religion. 
The  philosophy  of  Ramanuja  was  a  modi- 
fied  monism   or   a   qualified   idealism.      He 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  8 1 

taught  that  God,  whom  he  usually  spoke  of 
and  worshipped  as  Vishnu,  is  a  personal 
being,  and  that  the  human  soul  has  real 
and  distinct  entity,  though  after  death  its 
goal  is  absorption  into  Vishnu,  while  the 
way  of  salvation  is  by  loving  devotion  to 
God,  i.e.  bhakti.  Since  the  somewhat  allied 
Christian  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  was 
unquestionably  developed  in  Europe  under 
the  influence  of  God's  Spirit,  \Nhy  is  it  not 
right  to  assume  that  this  protestant  reform 
in  the  Hindu  religion  was  also  prompted  by 
God?  While  this  according  of  some  meas- 
ure of  personality  to  deity  and  of  some  real 
existence  to  the  human  soul  was  an  upward 
move,  of  still  greater  value  was  the  doctrine 
of  Vaishnavism  that  the  soul  is  not  only 
personal,  but  moral,  that  it  is  not  only  igno- 
rant, but  sinful,  and  that  its  salvation  is  to 
be  obtained  not  by  merit,  but  by  the  grace 
of  God  through  loving  devotion  to  Him. 

The  influence  of  Ramanuja,  the  first  leader 
of  Vaishnavism,  was  among  the  upper  classes, 
of  which  he,  as  a  Brahman,  was  a  member. 
About  two  hundred  years  later,  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  there  lived  another  reformer 


82  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

named  Ramananda  who  carried  throughout 
a  large  part  of  India  this  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion through  loving  devotion  to  a  personal 
God.  He  is  considered  the  fifth  great 
Vaishnava  leader  in  succession  to  Ramanuja. 
Besides  preaching  the  doctrine  and  power 
of  bhakti,  Ramananda  went  beyond  previous 
leaders  in  making  this  faith  familiar  with 
the  masses,  and  he  chose  his  twelve  disciples, 
not  from  priests  or  nobles,  but  from  the 
common  people  and  even  from  the  despised 
classes.  One  of  these  disciples  was  a  leather- 
worker,  another  a  barber,  and  the  most  dis- 
tinguished was  the  son  of  a  v/eaver.  In 
India  Ramananda  was  a  contemporary  of 
Wycklif^e  in  Britain.  Both  the  British  Chris- 
tian reformer  and  the  Indian  Hindu  reformer 
sought  to  purify  religion  by  making  it  a 
personal  experience  dependent  on  right  re- 
lation to  God,  and  not  on  a  hierarchy.  Why 
should  not  the  one,  as  well  as  the  other  re- 
former, be  gratefully  counted  as  taught  and 
strengthened  by  God? 

The  religion  in  which  bhakti  was  the  chief 
element  is  known,  not  only  as  Vaishnavism, 
but  also  as  the  Bhagavata  religion,  the  be- 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  83 

ginnings  of  which  may  be  traced  to  Vedic 
times.  There  was  a  Vedic  deity  named 
Bhaga,  who  was  considered  the  bestower  of 
blessings.  Gradually  the  word  bhaga  came 
to  be  the  word  for  goodness  and  not  the  name 
of  a  god.  Then,  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
Sanskrit  language,  the  name  of  a  god  of 
goodness  came  to  be  Bhagavat,  i.e.  the  divine 
possessor  of  goodness.  Then,  by  another 
linguistic  derivation,  the  worship  of  the  god 
Bhagavat  was  termed  the  Bhagavata  reli- 
gion. In  the  epic  poem  the  Mahabharata, 
this  Bhagavata  religion  is  named,  and  since 
that  poem  in  its  present  form  was  known  at 
least  as  early  as  four  centuries  before  Christ, 
this  Bhagavata  religion  is  older  than  the 
Christian  religion.  Yet  because  the  chief 
doctrine  of  this  religion,  viz. :  salvation  by 
the  grace  of  God  received  by  any  one  who 
exercises  faith  or  loving  devotion  to  Him, 
is  an  approximation  to  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  salvation  by  faith,  some  Christians 
have  inferred  that  this  system  must  somehow 
have  been  borrowed  from  the  Christian  reli- 
gion. For  tvvo  reasons  this  inference  is  un- 
warranted.    The  first   reason   is  conclusive: 


84  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

The  beginnings  of  the  bhakti  doctrine  un- 
questionably can  be  found  in  India  some 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era  in  the 
Bhagavad  Gita.  The  second  reason  is  a 
probable  one,  namely,  almost  all  the  doctrines 
of  the  Christian  religion  have  their  counter- 
parts in  some  phases  of  Hinduism,  and  this 
is  not  strange,  but  natural,  because  the  divine 
Spirit  who  taught  these  truths  to  Christians 
was  never  inactive  toward  non-Christians. 
Moreover,  the  Christ  distinctly  said  that  He 
came  to  fulfil  the  earlier  teachings  of  God, 
and  He  did  not  come  to  teach  new  doctrines, 
so  much  as  to  give  a  dynamic  for  true  living. 
Yet  it  is  a  historical  fact  that  the  first  wide 
prevalence  of  this  Bhagavata  religion,  of 
which  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  grace  to 
whoever  exercises  loving  devotion  to  any  god, 
is  the  main  doctrine,  became  widespread  in 
India  from  the  fourteenth  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  And  when  this  religious  sys- 
tem became  prevalent  it  was  mainly  through 
preachers  and  saints  of  the  humbler  classes, 
even  through  some  eminent  and  saintly 
women. 

In  this  connection  it  is  illuminating  and 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  8^ 

instructive  to  note  that  on  the  doctrine  of 
divine  grace  modern  Bhagavatas  are  divided 
into  two  schools  of  thought  which  are  re- 
spectively influential  in  the  north  and  in  the 
south  of  India.  The  North  school  teaches 
that  God's  grace  is  co-operative,  i.e.  that 
school  advocates  the  necessity  of  human  free- 
dom and  co-operation  in  the  appropriation  of 
salvation.  The  South  school  teaches  that 
God's  grace  is  irresistible.  The  names  given 
to  the  two  schools  from  their  peculiar  doc- 
trines about  the  manner  in  which  grace  is 
secured  by  the  believer  well  illustrate  the 
Indian  way  of  thinking.  The  North  school's 
doctrine  that  the  grace  of  God  is  obtained 
only  when  the  believer  co-operates  with  God 
in  the  appropriation  of  His  grace  is  called 
''  The  monkey  way,"  because,  as  the  infant 
monkey  itself  clings  to  its  mother  and  co- 
operates with  its  parent  in  receiving  her 
help,  so  the  worshipper  must  actively  co- 
operate with  the  deity  when  receiving  from 
Him  the  grace  which  comes  from  loving 
devotion.  The  doctrine  of  the  South  school 
of  Bhagavatas  is  called  "  The  cat  way,"  be- 
cause, as  the  kitten  wholly  surrenders  itself 


86  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

to  be  carried  by  its  mother,  so  the  worshipper 
in  exercising  bhakti  is  wholly  passive  to  the 
grace  of  God.  According  to  this  southern 
school  the  result  of  loving  devotion  of  the 
worshipper  is  the  irresistible  grace  of  God 
toward  that  devotee.  It  is  an  interesting  co- 
incidence that,  as  in  Europe  the  Northern 
Christians  were  advocates  of  human  freedom 
and  responsibility,  so  in  Northern  India 
pious  Hindus  taught  co-operative  grace  on 
the  part  of  the  believer  when  exercising 
faith,  while  both  in  Southern  Europe  and 
Southern  India  the  advocates  of  salvation  by 
faith  held  the  doctrine  of  irresistible  grace. 

Another  good  element  in  this  Bhagavata 
religion  was  a  doctrine  which  practically 
taught  the  separate  immortality  of  the  soul, 
something  quite  different  from  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  spirit  into  the  infinite  It.  It  was 
taught  that  when  the  Infinite  put  forth  the 
individual  soul  as  a  separate  existence  it  is  to 
remain  forever  as  a  conscious  separate  being. 
However,  the  Bhagavata  religion  had  a  lim- 
ited acceptance  of  the  Hindu  idea  of  trans- 
migration, so  far  that  the  soul  has  its  round 
of    deaths    and    re-births    until    saved    by 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  87 

bhakti.  Yet  when  the  soul  develops  bhakti 
it  is  released  from  re-births  and  enjoys  a  per- 
petual conscious,  independent  existence  at 
the  feet  of  God.  There  its  blessing  is  serving 
and  waiting  on  Him.  The  soul  does  not  be- 
come Him,  but  becomes  like  Him,  and  so 
remains  in  everlasting  conscious  bliss.  The 
doctrine  of  sin  in  this  Bhagavata  religion 
is  also  an  improvement  over  the  doctrine  of 
sin  in  ordinary  Hinduism.  According  to 
this  school,  sin  is  any  act  at  variance  with 
loving  devotion  to  God.  Every  such  sin  de- 
serves and  should  receive  the  legitimate  pun- 
ishment of  its  natural  fruits.  Yet  the  ador- 
able one  graciously  forgives  his  loving 
disciple. 

Another  influential  element  of  the  Bhaga- 
vata religion  was  the  doctrine  of  incarna- 
tions. The  idea  of  a  god  becoming  incar- 
nate is  a  very  old  one  in  India.  In  old 
Vedic  literature  there  are  stories  that  now 
one  god  and  now  another  became  incarnate 
to  save  the  gods  or  to  conquer  the  world. 
But  finally  this  incarnation  idea  was  detached 
from  other  gods  and  became  specially  con- 
nected with  stories  of  the  alleged  incarnation 


88  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

of  Vishnu  in  connection  with  the  Bhagavata 
religion.  It  was  natural.  Vishnu  was  a 
personal  god  with  many  human  character- 
istics, ready  to  show  grace  to  men  in  trouble. 
The  heart  longed  for  a  concrete  object  to 
which  to  turn  in  loving  devotion.  The  heart 
believes  that  a  great  God  will  be  ready  to 
lay  aside  privilege  in  order  to  help  needy 
worshippers.  Christians  believe  that  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  there  was  a  perfect  in- 
carnation of  the  divine  in  a  human  form. 
Why  may  not  God  have  led  the  pious  Hindu 
also  to  believe  in  God's  readiness  to  empty 
Himself  and  take  a  lowly  form  in  order  to 
help  His  needy  children,  even  though  the  al- 
leged incarnations  of  Vishnu  are  inadequate 
and  even  grotesque  specimens  of  what  would 
seem  worthy  incarnations  of  the  divine?  At 
any  rate  the  doctrine  of  incarnation  de- 
veloped in  the  Bhagavata  religion  more  than 
elsewhere  in  Hinduism,  and  the  most  popu- 
lar of  the  nine  past  incarnations  of  Vishnu 
are  the  two  in  which  he  is  said  to  have 
assumed  real  human  forms,  viz.:  Rama  and 
Krishna. 

The    stories    of    Rama    rarely    imply   un- 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  89 

worthy  characteristics.  At  the  beginning  the 
beliefs  in  Krishna's  incarnation  were  lofty, 
as  is  seen  from  the  character  which  he  bears 
in  the  Bhagavad  Gita.  But  the  tendency  of 
the  human  mind  to  take  a  downward  path 
is  perhaps  most  sadly  illustrated  in  the  de- 
generacy of  the  Krishna  mythology.  Apart 
from  the  historical  fact  that  the  oldest  story 
about  Krishna  reaches  a  high  ethical  plane, 
there  is  the  certainty  that  the  reverence  of 
men  nowhere  can  be  secured  at  first  for  an 
unworthy  character.  Our  Lord's  teaching 
that  the  upward  way  is  difficult,  while  the 
downward  road  is  easy,  simply  expresses  the 
principle  of  which  the  history  of  Hinduism 
is  one  of  the  clearest  and  most  impressive 
illustrations  that  degeneracy  in  religion  is  easy 
and  common.  A  powerful  and  luxuriant 
imagination  is  the  most  prominent  mental 
power  of  the  Hindu.  From  early  times  till 
to-day  the  Hindu  uses  language  which  seems 
to  the  occidental  extravagant  and  sensuous. 
Erotic  language  does  not  necessarily  imply 
impure  thoughts  in  Hindu  literature  more 
than  in  the  Song  of  Solomon.  So  the  highly 
sensuous    and    erotic    language    applied    to 


90  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Krishna  in  the  later  Puranic  literature  does 
not  at  the  beginning  seem  to  have  implied 
immorality  on  Krishna's  part.  But  ere  long 
the  flesh  pulled  down  the  spirit,  and  sooner 
or  later  the  masses  took  these  stories  of  the 
Krishna  incarnation  as  indicating  that  he 
was  a  licentious  and  immoral  character. 
How  God  must  have  mourned  over  these 
numerous  and  sad  aberrations  and  degen- 
eracies of  religion! 

Almost  certainly  the  incarnation  doctrine 
of  the  Bhagavata  religion  did  not  tend  to 
destroy  polytheism.  It  may  have  strength- 
ened that  tendency.  At  any  rate  polytheism 
has  always  been  associated  with  the  Bhaga- 
vata system,  as  in  all  other  Hindu  systems. 
This  may  have  been  one  fruit  of  the  principle 
of  excessive  accommodation.  Polytheism  in 
India  is  certainly  one  result  of  pantheism. 
If  everything  is  divine  and  the  divine  is 
everything,  all  distinctions  are  unreal.  Then 
why  should  not  men  regard  some  places  and 
powers  which  attract  special  attention  as 
certainly  divine  and  worship  them! 

One  of  the  next  developments  of  the 
Bhagavata  religion  was  the  importance  given 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  91 

to  the  religious  teacher  or  guru.  Even  in 
the  Christian  religion  and  certainly  in  every 
other  religion  the  ordinary  man  feels  the 
need  of  a  guide  in  spiritual  things,  as  well 
as  in  medicine,  and  travel,  and  all  relations 
of  life.  But  probably  no  religion  emphasizes 
the  need  of  a  spiritual  guide  so  much  as 
Hinduism.  Also  one  of  the  finest  character- 
istics of  Hindus  is  what  has  been  called  their 
genius  for  recognizing  and  following  a  help- 
ful religious  leader.  However,  as  in  other 
respects,  so  in  the  Hindu's  excessive  regard 
for  Jiis  guru  the  lack  of  proportion  is  a  fatal 
defect.  Extravagant  claims  for  such  leaders 
were  soon  made,  and  generally  admitted. 
One  of  the  principal  books  of  the  Bhagavata 
religion,  the  Bhaktamdla,  or  String  of  Saints, 
in  its  very  first  line  gives  as  the  essentials 
of  true  religion  the  following  four:  Faith, 
the  believer,  the  divine  one  to  be  believed  in, 
and  the  guru.  The  order  of  these  four 
essentials  makes  not  God,  nor  loving  de- 
votion to  Him,  but  the  religious  leader  and 
devotion  to  him,  the  most  important  thing  in 
religion. 

In  the  coming  of  Islam  into  contact  with 


92  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Hinduism  the  devout  man  should  see  the 
guiding  hand  of  God.  Indian  pantheism 
had  metaphysically  prepared  the  way  for 
the  monotheism  of  the  Mohammedans.  But 
that  pantheism  had  also  been  a  real  cause  of 
the  unhealthy  growth  of  polytheism,  idolatry, 
and  superstition  which  always  develop  in 
the  masses  when  the  thinkers  pursue  panthe- 
ism. There  must  have  been  need  of  a  stern, 
iconoclastic  religion  like  Islam  which  flamed 
with  indignation  against  these  abuses  which 
outwardly  appeared  to  be  the  whole  of 
Hinduism.  The  Indian  people  were  far 
too  numerous  for  these  Mohammedan  con- 
querors to  offer  them  en  masse  a  choice  be- 
tween the  sword  or  submission  to  the  prophet 
of  Mecca.  Yet  with  a  rough  hand  they  often 
broke  down  or  mutilated  temples  and 
smashed  idols,  and  supposed  that  thereby 
they  were  casting  out  superstition  and  cleans- 
ing religion.  The  fundamental  spiritual  in- 
adequacy and  defect  of  Islam  is  that  it  has 
not  the  controlling,  constructive  purpose  of 
the  Christ.  Mohammed's  controlling  idea 
was  not  to  fulfil,  but  to  destroy.  The  Moham- 
medans did  great  service  for  India,  but  their 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  93 

greatest  service  was  other  than  that  which 
they  intended  or  understood.  Few  lessons 
are  fitted  to  be  so  suggestive  to  those  who 
would  Christianize  India  as  understanding 
how  Islam  most  helped  India  to  purify  its 
religion.  The  religious  history  of  India 
shows  that  though  considerable  numbers  of 
Hindus  from  the  uneducated  and  lower 
classes  became  Mohammedans,  the  greatest 
service  of  Islam  was  not  to  make  converts, 
but,  without  intention,  to  inspire  some  devout 
and  thoughtful  Hindus  to  see  the  funda- 
mental truths  of  monotheism  and  to  initiate 
new  reforming  movements.  Because  the  Mo- 
hammedan sway  was  principally  in  North 
India  these  reforming  efforts  were  mainly 
made  in  that  part  of  the  country. 

Chronologically,  several  of  these  important 
reforms  took  place  in  India  at  the  same  time 
that  Luther  was  leading  the  Protestant  Chris- 
tian Reformation  movement  in  Europe.  In 
general,  the  cause  and  the  main  characteristic 
of  both  Christian  and  Indian  reforms  was 
a  revolt  from  the  ceremonialism  and  sacerdo- 
talism, which  were  becoming  burdensome  to 
true  religion  in  both  Europe  and  Asia.    The 


94  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

earliest  of  these  reformers  who  came  under 
the  monotheistic  influence  of  Islam  was 
Kabir,  who  lived  and  taught  near  Benares  in 
the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  A.D. 
By  birth,  Kabir  may  have  been  a  Moham- 
medan, but  eventually  he  became  a  disciple 
of  the  Ramananda  school  of  the  Bhagavata 
religion  and  so  is  considered  a  Hindu  re- 
former. He  taught  that  there  is,  and  can  be, 
only  one  God,  that  idolatry  is  folly  and 
sin,  that  religion  is  devotion  to  one  god,  who 
he  himself  worshipped  as  Vishnu,  Rama,  or 
Hari,  or  even  by  the  names  of  god  which 
were  current  among  Mohammedans.  His 
teachings  were  an  attempt  to  compromise  be- 
tween Hinduism  and  Islam,  and  were  largely 
tinged  with  the  basal  Hindu  pantheistic  be- 
lief. Kabir  made  many  disciples,  who  are 
called  Kabirpanthis,  not  a  few  of  whom  are 
found  to-day.  The  keynote  of  Kabir's 
teachings  was  the  duty  of  every  man  to  search 
for,  and  find,  and  then  to  obey  a  spiritual 
teacher. 

But  the  most  influential  reforming  move- 
ment began  in  the  Northwest  under  Nanak, 
the  first  great  guru  of  the  Sikhs.    Translated 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  95 

into  English  the  word  Sikhs  means  Disciples. 
Nanak  was  a  contemporary  of  Luther,  and 
in  some  respects  was  like  that  great  German 
Christian  reformer.  If  we  rightly  ascribe 
Luther's  movement  to  inspiration  from  God, 
we  ought  also  to  do  the  same  for  Nanak's. 
The  founder  of  the  Sikh  religion  wrote  a 
book  called  the  Granth,  i.e.  the  book,  which 
contains  the  principles  of  his  faith,  viz.: 
some  measure  of  the  unity  and  personality 
of  God,  the  distinctness  and  responsibility  of 
man,  and  therefore  some  degree  of  real  sin. 
He  was  almost  as  severe  against  polytheism 
and  idolatry  as  the  Mohammedans. 

But  like  all  previous  reforming  movements 
in  India,  this  Sikh  religion  suffered  arrest 
and  soon  suffered  degeneracy.  The  first  cause 
of  its  arrest  was  the  subtle  influence  of  Hindu 
pantheism  from  which  Nanak  could  not  free 
himself.  To  the  Christian  worker,  perhaps 
the  most  impressive  lesson  from  Sikhism  is 
the  danger  and  ineffectiveness  of  compromise 
in  religion.  Truth  has  many  phases  and 
applications.  But  truth  is  not  something  to 
be  compromised.  Nanak  taught  the  decep- 
tive principle,  which  has  always  been,  and 


96  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Still  is,  most  attractive  to  the  Hindu  mind, 
that  truth  is  not  absolute,  but  only  what  seems 
to  be  truth  to  any  one.  He  tried  to  combine 
belief  in  one  personal  god  with  belief  in  the 
impersonal  It  of  pantheism;  of  belief  in  some 
personality  in  man  with  belief  that  he  is  an 
unreal  emanation  from  the  Infinite  whose 
end  it  is  to  be  reabsorbed  into  It;  of  belief 
that  man  is  a  real  and  responsible  sinner 
with  belief  that  the  universe  is  an  illusion 
ruled  by  mdyd.  This  led  to  practical  denial 
of  free  will,  and  to  belief  in  fate.  Thus 
Nanak  said: 

"  The  power  of  this  one  is  not  in  this  one's 
hand. 
The  cause  of  causes  is  the  Lord  of  all. 
The  creature  is  helpless  and  must  obey. 
What  pleases  That  one,  that  will  be." 

According  to  Sikhism  the  principal  means 
of  attaining  salvation  are  reverence  for  re- 
ligious teachers,  abundant  repetition  of  the 
names  of  deity,  and  charity  to  men  and 
animals. 

One  point  in  which  Sikhism  is  saner  and 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  97 

more  helpful  in  teaching  and  influence  than 
ordinary  Hinduism,  is  that  it  teaches  the 
disciples  to  stay  in  the  world  to  help  it,  in- 
stead of  fleeing  from  it.  Also  Nanak  did 
not  teach  nor  believe  in  the  Hindu  caste 
system.  He  said:  "Thou  (O,  God),  ac- 
knowledgest  the  light  (that  is  in  him)  and 
does  not  ask  after  his  caste."  And  the  tenth 
and  last  guru,  Guru  Govind  Singh,  com- 
manded that  caste  should  not  be  recognized 
in  the  Sikh  community.  However,  this  com- 
mand has  never  been  fully  carried  out.  De- 
generacy began  by  the  practical  deification 
of  the  guru,  by  excessive  reverence  for  the 
sacred  book,  which  is  practically  worshipped, 
though  the  book  itself  is  severe  on  idolatry, 
and  by  formalism,  which  makes  the  repeti- 
tion of  divine  names  a  means  of  spiritual 
renewal.  More  and  more  the.Sikh  religion 
has  tended  to  become  a  sect  of  Hinduism,  and 
even  to-day  that  tendency  is  strikingly 
marked. 

Others  beside  Nanak  were  influenced  by 
Mohammedanism.  Prominent  among  these 
were  Tulsidas,  Chaitanya,  and  Tukaram,  all 
of  whom  are  classified  as  Sadhus  or  saints. 


98  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

These  spiritual-minded  men  lived  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  to  my 
mind  reached  the  highest  development  of  a 
pure  religion  up  to  their  times.  Before,  and 
in  their  times,  Hinduism  had  again  become 
largely  one  of  polytheism,  unmeaning  cere- 
monies, fasts,  and  vows,  of  a  degrading  type 
of  sacred  books  called  Puranas,  and  a  me- 
chanical religion.  These  Sadhus,  unques- 
tionably under  the  influence  of  God's  Spirit, 
made  religion  consist  of  faith  in  a  personal 
god  or  gods,  in  purity  of  heart  awakened  by 
loving  devotion,  and  in  simplicity  and  kindli- 
ness of  life.  Here  is  one  short  characteristic 
poem  of  Tukaram,  the  most  noted  Sadhu  of 
Western  India: 

"  I  am  a  denizen  of  Vaikuntha,  and  have 
come 

To  bring  into  practice  that  which  was 
taught  by  the  Rishis: 

We  will  sweep  clean  the  ways  of  the  sages; 
the  world 

Is  overgrown  with  weeds. 

We  will  accept  the  portion  that  has  re- 
mained. 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY  99 

Truth  has  disappeared   in  consequence  of 

the  Puranas;    ruin 
Has  been  effected  by  pedantry. 
The   heart   is    addicted    to    pleasures,    and 

the  Way  is  destroyed. 
We  will  beat  the  drum  of  bhakti,  the  terror 

of  the  Kali  age. 
Says  Tuka,  raise  shouts  of  victory  through 

joy." 

It  is  my  impression  that,  while  the  reli- 
gious influence  of  the  pious  Sadhus  was  very 
great,  and  while  it  has  never  lost  vitality,  yet 
Hinduism  as  a  whole    was  only  moderately 
modified     by     these      healthy     movements. 
Superstition,  polytheism,  idolatry,  formalism, 
unmeaning    ceremonies,     immorality,     char- 
acterized a   large   part  of   Hinduism.     The 
worship  of  force,  or  Shakti,   personified   as 
a  goddess,  and  subordinately  in  all  women, 
became  common.     In  the  latest  sacred  writ- 
ings called  Tantras,  Force,  personified  as  a 
goddess,    receives    excessive   veneration,    and 
this  popular  Hinduism  became  a  most  cor- 
rupt   and    demoralizing    form    of    religion. 
This  personified  goddess  of  Force  is  usually 


lOO  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

considered  the  wife  of  Shiva,  and  like  him, 
is  the  divinity  who  is  the  object  of  super- 
stitious fear.  According  to  Monier  Williams, 
''  her  many  personifications  are  female  fiends 
or  ogresses  of  repulsive  habits."  Not  long 
ago  the  Hon.  Gopal  Hari  Deshmukh,  a 
scholarly  Hindu  gentleman  of  Western 
India,  published  a  book  called  the  Agama- 
prakasha,  in  which  he  gives  extracts  from 
the  sacred  writings  called  Tantras,  in  one  of 
which  is  the  following  description  of  the 
goddess  Kali,  the  chief  personification  of 
female  energy,  from  whose  sacred  place  on 
the  river  Hugli,  Kalighata,  the  city  of  Cal- 
cutta received  its  name.  The  Tantra  book 
says:  "One  should  adore  with  liquors  and 
oblations  that  Kali  who  has  a  terrible  gap- 
ing mouth  and  uncombed  hair;  who  has  four 
hands  and  a  garland  formed  of  the  heads  of 
the  demons  whom  she  has  slain  and  whose 
blood  she  has  drunk;  who  holds  a  sword  in 
her  lotus-like  hand;  who  is  fearless  and 
awards  blessings;  who  is  as  black  as  the 
large  clouds  and  has  the  whole  sky  for  her 
clothes;  who  has  a  string  of  skulls  around 
her  neck,  and  a  throat  besmeared  with  blood; 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        lOI 

who  wears  ear-rings  (consisting  of  two  dead 
bodies)  ;  who  carries  two  dead  bodies  in  her 
hands;  who  has  terrible  teeth  and  a  smiling 
face;  whose  form  is  awful  and  who  dwells 
in  burning  grounds  (for  consuming  corpses)  ; 
who  stands  on  the  breast  of  her  husband, 
Mahadeva."  Of  this  Shakti  worship  of 
female  energy,  Monier  Williams  says:  "It 
might  have  been  expected  that  a  creed  which 
admits  of  an  infinite  multiplication  of  female 
deities  and  makes  every  woman  an  object  of 
worship  would  be  likely  to  degenerate  into 
various  forms  of  licentiousness  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  witchcraft  on  the  other.  But, 
if  such  consequences  might  have  been  antici- 
pated, the  actwal  fact  has  been  worse  than 
the  most  gloomy  pessimist  could  possibly 
have   foretold." 

Another  degrading  form  of  modern  Shakta 
Hinduism  is  a  reproduction  of  the  old  and 
superstitious  belief  that  the  mere  repetition 
of  sacred  texts  or  mantras  has  magical  power 
to  cause  every  conceivable  good  to  one's 
self  and  evil  to  one's  enemies.  Such,  and 
even  worse  features  of  popular  Hinduism 
which  one  cannot  well  quote,  are  down  to  the 


102  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

present  day  illustrations  of  the  awful  depths 
to  which  that  system  had  fallen.  Caste  was 
iron-clad  and  repressive.  The  flesh  con- 
tinued to  triumph  over  the  spirit. 

But  it  is  darkest  shortly  before  dawn.  At 
such  a  juncture  Christian  influences  on  a 
considerable  scale  were  brought  by  God  into 
contact  with  Hinduism.  I  now  outline  some 
of  the  results  of  this  contact.  The  result 
was  the  beginning  of  a  new  victory  of  the 
spirit  over  the  flesh.  Its  most  marked  move- 
ment was  in  Calcutta.  An  intelligent  Brah- 
man of  noble  family,  Rajah  Rammohan  Roy, 
as  a  lad  had  many  a  discussion  with  his 
father  on  the  subject  of  idolatry.  This  so 
disturbed  his  relations  with  his  parent  that 
he  was  sent  away  from  home.  In  pursuit  of 
religious  truth  he  studied  Persian  and  Arabic 
that  he  might  get  first-hand  knowledge  of  re- 
ligious books  in  those  languages.  As  a  young 
man  he  made  a  perilous  journey  across  the 
Himalayas  to  Thibet  to  study  Buddhism  at 
one  of  its  most  sacred  fountains.  Disap- 
pointed by  the  search,  he  went  to  Benares  to 
study  Sanskrit  and  Hinduism  at  its  most 
sacred    spot.      Becoming    reconciled    to    his 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        103 

father  and  engaging  in  business,  he  studied 
English  and  Arabic.  In  Arabic  he  carefully 
studied  the  Kuran  and  patiently  studied  the 
Bible  in  English,  Hebrew,  and  Greek.  As 
a  result  of  study,  thought,  and  conferences 
with  thoughtful  friends,  he  taught  that  there 
is  only  one  God,  who  is  the  father  of  the 
spirits  of  all  men;  that  in  all  religious  move- 
ments men  were  blindly  seeking  after  that 
God,  and  therefore  that  the  goal  in  religion 
is  for  all  men  to  agree  in  the  spiritual  wor- 
ship of  the  one  God  whom  all  seek  and 
vaguely  acknowledge,  accompanied  by  service 
to  fellow  men.  He  early  published  a  tract 
entitled  "The  Precepts  of  Jesus;  Guide  to 
Peace  and  Happiness."  In  the  preface  to 
that  tract  he  wrote:  "This  simple  code  of 
religion  and  morality  is  so  admirably  calcu- 
lated to  elevate  men's  ideas  to  high  and 
liberal  notions  of  One  God,  who  has  equally 
subjected  all  living  creatures,  without  dis- 
tinction of  caste,  rank,  or  wealth,  to  change, 
disappointment,  pain,  and  death,  and  has 
equally  admitted  all  to  be  partakers  of  the 
bountiful  mercies  which  He  has  lavished 
over   nature:    and   is   also   so   well   fitted   to 


I04  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

regulate  the  conduct  of  the  human  race  in 
the  discharge  of  their  various  duties  to  God, 
to  themselves,  and  society,  that  I  cannot  but 
hope  the  best  effects  from  its  promulgation 
in  the  present  form."  He  drew  to  himself 
a  number  of  disciples  and  organized  a 
theistic  church  called  the  Brahma  Samaj, 
meaning  "  the  God  church  or  community." 

After  opposition  and  persecution,  this 
movement  was  strengthened  by  the  accession 
of  a  second  great  leader,  named  Babu  Deben- 
dranath  Sen,  connected  with  a  very  wealthy 
family.  After  a  youth  of  triviality,  Deben- 
dranath  became  impressed  with  the  vanity 
of  worldly  pleasure.  Then,  in  the  yearning 
after  a  higher  life,  he  joined  the  Brahma 
Samaj.  But  he  was  disillusioned  at  finding 
that,  while  most  of  its  members  were  intel- 
lectually theists,  yet  they  were  not  loyal  to 
their  conviction  in  home  and  public  life. 
So  he  started  a  Truth-seeking  Society,  the 
members  of  which  bound  themselves  by  a 
solemn  covenant  to  give  up  idolatry,  and  to 
cultivate  a  life  of  prayer  and  simple  service. 
Then  the  troublesome  question  arose  as  to  the 
basis  of  authority  in  religion.    As  a  result  of 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        105 

Study  and  discussion  the  Brahma  Samaj 
adopted  a  statement  embodying  the  fourteen 
fundamental  beliefs  of  the  movement,  of 
which  the  first  two  are  as  follows: 

"  I.  The  book  of  nature  and  intuition  form 
the  basis  of  the  Brahmic  faith.  II.  Although 
the  Brahmos  do  not  consider  any  book  writ- 
ten by  man  the  basis  of  their  religion,  yet 
they  do  accept  with  respect  and  pleasure  any 
truth  contained  in  any  book." 

Meanwhile,  a  third  development  occurred 
in  the  Samaj.  A  young  man  of  marked 
ability  and  spirituality,  Keshab  Chandar  Sen, 
became  a  leader  in  the  movement.  Then 
gradually  there  occurred  in  the  Samaj  that 
which  occurs  in  every  living  organism,  a 
struggle  between  the  conservative  and  pro- 
gressive elements.  Keshab  pushed  for  the 
elimination  of  caste  and  unspiritual  Hindu 
elements.  But,  because  the  executive  was 
conservative,  in  1866  the  young  minister  and 
the  liberal  members  left  the  mother  church 
to  form  a  new  Samaj  with  far-reaching, 
advanced  principles.  The  new  movement 
called  itself,  "  The  New  Dispensation,"  the 
creed  of  which  is  short  and  simple: 


Io6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

"(i)  One  God,  one  Scripture,  one  Church. 

(2)  Eternal  progress  of  the  soul. 

(3)  Communion  of  prophets  and  saints. 

(4)  Fatherhood     and     Motherhood     of 

God;     brotherhood    of    man     and 
sisterhood  of  woman. 

(5)  Harmony  of  knowledge  and  holiness, 

love  and  work,  Yoga  and  Asceticism 
in  their  highest  development. 

(6)  Loyalty  to  sovereign." 

While  this  movement  was  developing  in 
Northeast  India,  a  very  similar  movement 
in  Western  India  was  organized  as  the 
Prarthana  Samaj,  or  Prayer  Church.  The 
principles  of  this  theistic  church  of  Western 
India  are  not  very  unlike  the  principles  of 
the  Christian  Church,  but  with  less  promi- 
nence to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  claims 
that  the  best  thought  of  Aryan,  Semite,  and 
Christian  alike  has  been  directed  to  the 
evolution  of  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  man; 
that  the  duty  of  every  spiritual  movement 
is  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  the  highest 
teaching  of  preceding  teachers;  that  India  is 
above   all  countries  fitted  to  be  the  sphere 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        107 

for  a  new  and  finest  spiritual  religion,  be- 
cause it  is  her  genius  to  absorb  the  best  from 
all  influences  which  come  to  her;  that  in 
India  the  belief  that  a  man  must  be  born 
again  has  never  been  extinguished;  that  the 
nature  of  the  new  religion,  which  is  to  be 
established,  and  which  has  begun  in  India, 
will  be  liberation  from  a  formulated  law  and 
acceptance  of  faith  or  loving  devotion  to 
God  as  a  higher  law,  by  which  the  carnal 
in  men  will  be  in  subjection  to  the  spiritual; 
that  the  door  to  this  spiritual  kingdom  will 
be  repentance;  and  that  mercy  and  service 
to  men,  not  ceremonies  or  sacrifices,  will  be 
the  fruits  of  the  religion. 

Of  course  such  a  lofty  and  simple  pro- 
gramme of  the  theistic  churches  of  India  is 
the  fruit  of  the  divine  Spirit  taking  the  teach- 
ings and  example  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
impressing  them  upon  the  best  men  of  that 
country.  The  main  question  is  whether,  apart 
from  the  supremacy  which  the  Christian 
Church  assigns  to  the  Christ,  these  theistic 
churches  can  have  the  dynamic  which  his- 
tory and  personal  experience  show  to  be  un- 
attained  without  recognizing  the  Christ  as  the 


I08  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

supreme  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  It 
would  be  legitimate  to  speak  of  other  move- 
ments in  Hinduism,  such  as  the  Arya  Samaj 
and  the  Theosophical  Society,  which  are  less 
influenced  by  contact  with  Christian  thought 
and  Western  influences.  But  time  does  not 
permit  such  references. 

What  does  this  general  review  of  India's 
religious  history  suggest  to  a  Christian  lover 
of  India?  Does  it  not  justify  the  forecast 
that  India's  history  epitomizes  the  four 
words:  progress,  arrest,  degeneracy,  and  re- 
form, repeated  over  and  over  again?  Does 
it  not  indicate  the  working  of  God's  Spirit 
in  seeking  the  Indian,  and  that  He  has  never 
left  Himself  without  witness?  Does  it  not 
show  a  marvellous,  patient,  continuous  grop- 
ing of  the  Indian  after  God,  which  deserves 
and  should  receive  more  light  from  God, 
who  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  Him?  Especially  when  we  see  the  won- 
derful and  encouraging  change  and  power 
that  come  to  spiritual-minded  Indians  when 
they  come  into  contact  with  the  Christ,  is 
not  the  leading  impression  that  India  needs 
the  Christ,  that  she  has  long  been  preparing 


INDIA'S  LATER  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY        109 

for  Him,  that  she  is  being  greatly  drawn 
to  Him,  that  she  is  likely  more  and  more  to 
follow,  worship,  and  serve  Him,  and  that 
when  India's  best  sons  accept  His  loving 
power,  they  will  prove  marvellous  interpre- 
ters of  His  character  and  influence?  This 
will  be  the  subject  of  the  fifth  lecture. 


Ill 


AN    ANALYSIS    OF    SOME    FUNDAMENTALS    OF 
HINDUISM 

IN  two  former  lectures  there  was  given  a 
general  interpretive  outline  of  the  de- 
velopment of  India's  religious  history 
till  the  present  time.  It  was  assumed  that 
such  an  outline  would  show  that,  as  in  other 
lands  in  connection  with  other  religions,  so 
in  India  the  history  of  its  religious  thought 
and  life  would  be  characterized  by  four 
terms:  progress,  arrest,  degeneracy,  and  re- 
form, repeated  over  and  over  again;  i.e.  it 
would  be  a  striking,  epitomized  story  in  a 
wonderful  country  of  the  struggle  of  the 
Spirit  against  the  flesh  and  of  the  flesh 
against  the  Spirit,  because  God  has  ever 
been  seeking  His  Indian  children  while  they 
have  been  dimly,  and  often  wrongly,  grop- 
ing after  Him;  but  that  the  best  in  religious 
thought  and   life   has   not  been   realized   in 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       III 

India  because  her  fulness  of  time  to  know 
the  supreme  revelation  of  God  in  His  Son, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  had  not  come. 

In  addition  to  such  an  outline,  a  more 
detailed  and  close  analysis  of  some  funda- 
mental phases  of  India's  religious  beliefs 
and  practices  is  needed  to  emphasize  the 
position  taken,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for 
the  final  lecture  on  India's  Preparation  for 
the  Christ  and  Christ's  Power  to  meet  that 
Preparation.  It  is  not  necessary  to  attempt 
any  analysis  of  lower  or  popular  Hinduism, 
for,  though  there  is  much  of  the  lower  Hin- 
duism still  in  the  land,  and  though  for 
practical  purposes  Christian  missionaries  will 
long  have  much  to  do  to  replace  such  unsatis- 
factory religion  with  Christian  doctrine  and 
life,  yet  confessedly  this  lower  Hinduism  is 
doomed  and  is  passing  away. 

For  centuries  not  a  few  representatives  of 
the  purer  phases  of  India's  thought  and  life 
have  relentlessly  criticised  such  unsatisfac- 
tory religion,  and  have  made  efforts  to  sup- 
plant it  by  better  conceptions  and  better  liv- 
ing, and  to-day  many  earnest  non-Christian 
Indians  are  engaged  in  the  same  worthy  ef- 


112  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

fort.     While  the  best  religious  thought  and 
effort  of   intelligent  and   earnest  non-Chris- 
tian   Indians    appreciate    the    work    which 
Christian  missionaries  have  done  in  exposing 
the    imperfections    and   wrongs    of    popular 
Hinduism  and  in  working  for  their  removal, 
yet   those   non-Christian    reformers   are   nat- 
urally undertaking  for  their  ancestral  faiths 
a  task  similar  to  that  attempted  by  the  Neo- 
Platonists  in  the  second  and  third  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era,  when  the  popular  reli- 
gions of  Europe,  Western  Asia,  and  Northern 
Africa  were  passing  away,  and  the  more  phil- 
osophical  and   ethical   followers  of   the   old 
religions    sought    to    arrest   the    progress    of 
Christianity  by  purifying  and  reinvigorating 
the  older  faiths.     As  in  the  West  the  most 
thoughtful  Christians  are  studying  the  origins 
of  their  own  religion,  partly  to  see  what  un- 
satisfactory  elements    have    entered    into    it, 
and    partly   to    make   clearer   what   are    the 
essentials  of  the  Christian  faith,  so  naturally 
intelligent   Hindus   are   doing  the   same   for 
their  religion  and  are  seeking  to  show  that 
the  higher  Hinduism  is  a  satisfactory  reli- 
gion at  least  for  Indians.     Therefore,   it  is 


SOME   FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       II3 

both  fitting  and  necessary  that  Christian 
leaders  also  should  seek  to  study  the  bases 
of  the  higher  Hinduism  and  to  interpret 
their  significance. 

While  Hinduism,  unquestionably,  is  a  mix- 
ture of  many  and  divergent  doctrines  and 
practices,  yet  undoubtedly  there  are  also  a 
few  elements  which  are  characteristic  of 
what  may  be  called  entire  Hinduism.  This 
lecture  is  an  attempt  to  interpret  two  such 
fundamentals,  viz. :  first,  the  belief  in  Karma 
and  transmigration  and  release  therefrom; 
and,  secondly,  caste.  Bloomfield  expresses 
the  view  of  all  scholars  when  he  says:  "A 
pessimistic  view  of  transmigration  and  re- 
lease from  transmigration  are  the  true  signs 
of  Hinduism  in  the  broadest  sense  of  that 
word."  The  idea  of  transmigration  has 
appeared  in  many  parts  of  the  world.  It  is 
uncertain  when  belief  in  it  began  in  India. 
Its  earliest  source  may  have  been  the  totem- 
istic  belief  that  when  a  spirit  leaves  its 
body,  it  joins  its  totem  in  another  sphere. 
Scholars  say  that  the  earlier  forms  of  Indian 
monotheistic  and  monistic  speculation  show 
no  sign  of  a  belief  in  transmigration.     So, 


114  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

while  its  beginning  may  have  been  in  folk- 
lore, partly  or  mainly  taken  from  the  beliefs 
of  aboriginal  races,  in  its  developed  form 
belief  in  transmigration  probably  began  to- 
ward the  latter  part  of  the  Vedic  period, 
and  it  is  unmistakable  in  the  Upanishad 
period.  In  this  period  it  is  always  connected 
with  the  doctrine  of  Karma.  There  is  some 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the 
Karmic  idea  strengthened  the  hold  of  the 
earlier  transmigration  idea,  or  whether  be- 
lief in  transmigration  led  to  the  Karma 
doctrine. 

The  doctrine  of  transmigration*  is  this: 
Every  living  creature  is  born  and  re-born  in 
some  organic  shape;  every  living  creature 
passes  from  one  to  another  in  a  countless 
series  of  existences  until  in  some  form  of 
existence  all  desire  and  ail  activity  as  the 
result  of  desire  have  passed.  The  reason  why 
the  soul  must  thus  wander  from  life  to  life 
is,  first,  that,  so  long  as  the  soul  has  any 
desire,  that  desire  must  result  in  a  deed,  and 

*  In  this  section  of  this  lecture  great  obligation  is  acknowl- 
edged to  "  Karma  and  Redemption"  by  A.  G.  Hogg,  M.  A., 
of  the  Madras  Christian  College. 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       II5 

that  deed  must  have  its  recompense  in  some 
future  state  of  existence;  and,  secondly,  the 
soul  changes  its  habitation  according  to  the 
quality  of  its  deeds  in  the  previous  state  of 
existence. 

The  allied  doctrine  of  Karma  is  defined 
by  Deussen,  one  of  the  greatest  authorities, 
as  follows:  "The  idea  of  Karma  is  that  life, 
in  quality  as  well  as  quantity,  is  the  accu- 
rately meted  and  altogether  fitting  expiation 
of  the  deeds  of  previous  existence.  This 
expiation  takes  place  through  {bhoktritvam 
and  kartritvam)  enjoying  and  acting,  where 
the  latter  is  again  inevitably  converted  into 
deeds  which  must  be  expiated  anew  in  a 
subsequent  existence,  so  that  the  clockwork 
of  requital  in  running  down  winds  itself 
up  again;  and  so  on  in  perpetuity — unless 
there  comes  upon  the  scene  the  universal 
knowledge  which,  as  will  be  seen,  does  not 
rest  upon  merit,  but  breaks  its  way  into  ex- 
istence without  connection  therewith,  to  dis- 
solve utterly,  to  burn  up  the  seed  of  deeds 
and  thus  to  render  a  continuance  of  the  trans- 
migration impossible  forever  after.  How- 
ever,   knowledge    cannot    arrest    the    present 


Il6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

existence,  because  the  latter  is  conditioned 
by  the  deeds  in  an  earlier  birth.  Their  seed, 
having  already  sprung  up,  has  escaped  the 
general  destruction,  and  demands  to  be  com- 
pletely requited.  Death  cannot  supervene 
so  long  as  a  remnant  of  deeds  from  previous 
existence  is  left,  but  w^henever  this  is  ex- 
hausted, life  must  go  out  like  a  lamp  when 
the  oil  has  been  consumed.  Upon  death 
those  who  have  not  attained  knowledge  are 
conducted  by  fantastic  ways  to  requital  in 
realms  beyond  and  are  then  brought  back 
into  new  forms  of  existence.  Those  who 
have  attained  knowledge  are  merged  in  iden- 
tity with  Brahman  forthwith,  if  it  be  the 
higher  knowledge  or,  if  it  be  the  lower,  by 
the  roundabout  road  of  the  Devayana,  or 
way  of  the  gods." 

The  subject  of  present  examination  is  the 
idea  of  Karma  and  the  way  of  release  there- 
from. Whether  some  doctrine  of  trans- 
migration preceded  the  distinct  articulation 
of  the  Karma  doctrine  or  not,  it  seems  prob- 
ably that  the  Karma  doctrine  had  more  in- 
fluence in  determining  the  transmigration 
doctrine  than  the  reverse.     The  doctrine  of 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       II7 

Karma  appears  to  be  the  plainest  doctrine 
in  Hinduism,  expressing  the  response  of  the 
Hindu  conscience  to  the  voice  of  God,  be- 
cause the  Karmic  doctrine  is  the  clearest 
and  most  forceful  Hindu  recognition  of 
the  moral  order  of  the  universe.  However, 
as  we  shall  soon  see,  it  was  such  recognition 
accompanied  by  serious  defects.  So,  while 
it  was  at  first  a  progress  upward,  it  also 
suffered  the  arrest  of  development  and  then 
degeneracy,  which  have  so  regularly  and 
pathetically  characterized  Hinduism.  Yet 
the  doctrine  of  the  way  of  release  from 
Karma,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  higher 
Hinduism,  is  an  effort  to  limit  the  error  of 
the  Karma  doctrine,  and  is  another  call  of 
the  Hindu  heart  in  darkness  for  help  from 
the  Father  of  spirits,  the  satisfying  answer 
to  which  appeal  is,  I  believe,  to  come  from 
His  Son,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

The  doctrine  of  Karma  is  the  answer  of 
the  Hindu's  intellect  and  conscience  to  the 
age-long,  universal  problem  which  seeks  an 
explanation  of  the  mystery  of  apparently 
unmerited  suffering.  Our  Lord's  disciples 
propounded  that  problem  to  Him  when  they 


Il8  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

asked:  "Rabbi,  who  did  sin,  this  man,  or 
his  parents,  that  he  should  be  born  blind?" 
They  assumed,  as  most  men  in  most  lands 
without  the  Christian  solution  have  assumed, 
that  undeserved  suffering  must  have  been 
caused  by  some  one's  sin.  Later  I  shall  en- 
large on  the  Christian  doctrine  that  the  un- 
deserved sufferings  of  the  Christ  are  a  reve- 
lation of  the  divine  heart,  showing  that 
unmerited  suffering  is  necessarily  bound  up 
with  the  character  of  a  loving  God.  He 
must  suffer  in  order  to  save  His  children 
from  their  sins.  Later  elucidation  will  show 
this  to  have  been  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
answer  to  the  question  about  the  reason  of 
the  man's  being  born  blind:  "Neither  did 
this  man  sin,  nor  his  parents,  but  that  the 
works  of  God  should  be  manifest  in  Him." 
Yet,  till  the  suffering  Christ  gave  the  Chris- 
tian solution  to  the  problem  which  has  al- 
ways haunted  thinkers,  even  the  Old  Testa- 
ment could  not  give  the  only  measurably 
satisfying  solution  to  the  problem  of  suffer- 
ing which  the  Christ  gives. 

In    the    drama   of   Job    the   mystery   was 
clearly  stated,  but  not  consistently  answered 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       II9 

to  the  mental  satisfaction  of  Job  or  his  com- 
forters, or  to  present-day  readers.  Like  the 
disciples  who  assumed  that  the  ultimate  cause 
of  the  blind  man's  having  been  born  blind 
must  have  been  some  one's  wrong-doing, 
Job's  comforters  assumed  that,  though  Job 
appeared  to  have  been  a  good  man,  he  must 
have  sinned;  otherwise  God,  who  must  be 
good,  would  have  been  unjust  in  allowing 
Job  to  suffer.  Job  denied  having  done  any 
wrong  which  could  deserve  such  suffering, 
and  was  naturally  tempted  to  infer  that 
God  had  been  unjust  to  him.  Without  de- 
nying the  assumptions  of  both  Job  and  his 
friends  that  according  to  a  moral  order 
a  man  would  not  be  allowed  to  suffer  thus 
except  for  sin,  the  writer  of  the  drama  gets 
out  of  the  difficulty  by  assuming  that  suffer- 
ing is  only  a  mystery,  and  that  Job's  experi- 
ence was  exceptional.  In  the  law  of  Karma, 
the  Hindu  thinkers  give  a  theoretically  more 
consistent  explanation  than  the  writer  of  the 
drama  of  Job.  Their  answer  to  the  problem 
of  Job  would  have  been  this:  both  Job  and 
his  friends  are  right  in  assuming  that  good 
conduct   must   be    rewarded    by    prosperity, 


I20  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

and  that  misfortune  implies  guilt.  Job  is 
right  in  affirming  that  he  is  upright,  that  is, 
he  has  been  upright  in  his  present  life.  His 
friends  are  right  in  assuming  that  Job's 
sufferings  are  due  to  his  having  sinned,  and 
though  he  did  not  sin  in  this  life,  his  suf- 
ferings must  be  the  result  of  sins  in  a  former 
state  of  existence. 

While  such  a  solution  by  the  Hindu 
thinker  would  be  logically  a  more  consistent 
answer  to  the  problem  of  Job  than  the  Old 
Testament  solution,  the  latter  would  prac- 
tically be  more  helpful.  I  believe  that  the 
reason  for  the  differing  solutions  is  that  the 
Hindu  had  not  a  controlling  belief  in  a  per- 
sonal god  of  moral  character.  The  Old 
Testament  writer  had  such  a  god.  The 
Hindu  was  intellectually  more  acute  and 
logical,  but  by  his  wisdom  he  knew  not  God, 
though  that  God  was  impressing  his  mind 
with  the  assurance  of  a  mysterious  moral 
order,  which  requires  that  sin  and  righteous- 
ness must  be  adequately  dealt  with.  The 
Hebrew  knew  God,  though  his  logic  limped. 
This  was  the  reason  why  the  Hindu  thinker, 
with  much   of   reason   and   not   a   little   of 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       121 

morals  on  his  side,  has  from  the  first  swung 
more  and  more  away  from  the  highest  ex- 
planation of  the  problem  of  apparently  un- 
deserved suffering.  Nor  will  he  find  it  till 
he  accepts  the  solution  which  the  suffering 
Christ  gives. 

However,  the  Hindu  doctrine  of  Karma, 
being  a  reply  of  both  conscience  and  intel- 
lect to  the  problem  which  has  perplexed  all 
thinking  men,  has  some  real  moral  value. 
Christians  should  intelligently  and  fairly 
recognize  the  excellences,  as  well  as  the  de- 
fects of  the  doctrine,  because  when  the  ex- 
cellence, as  well  as  the  defect,  is  not  seen  and 
acknowledged,  the  former  seems,  even  to 
some  men  in  the  West,  a  plausible  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  facts  of  life  with  the  claims  of 
abstract  justice.  But  when  both  its  excel- 
lences and  defects  are  seen,  it  should  appear 
a  preparation  for  the  Christ. 

The  merits  of  the  doctrine  of  Karma  are 
as  follows:  First,  it  recognizes  that  a  man's 
lot  in  this  life  is  not  proportioned  to  his 
character,  and  therefore,  that  there  must  be 
somewhere  an  explanation  and  righting  of 
this    apparent    injustice.      Secondly,    it    em- 


122  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

phasizes  the  connection  of  cause  and  effect 
in  morals  as  in  the  other  affairs  of  the  uni- 
verse. While  it  will  later  be  shown  that 
the  theory  overlooks  the  undeniable  fact  that 
the  fruit  of  a  man's  sins  are  not,  and  cannot 
be,  borne  only  by  himself,  yet  it  does  rightly 
teach  that  even  a  single  sin  of  any  man  has 
momentous  importance  and  that  every  sin 
of  every  man  must  somehow  be  expiated; 
also  that  the  consequence  of  an  act  is  really 
not  a  separate  thing,  but  is  a  part  of  the  act 
itself.  Also,  while  another  weakness  in  the 
theory  will  be  pointed  out  later,  that  it  over- 
looks the  most  solemn  result  of  sin,  viz.:  that 
the  greatest  injury  of  sin  is  not  that  it  brings 
a  resultant  curse,  but  is,  in  itself,  the  worst 
curse,  yet  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
the  universal  tendency  of  sin  is  to  bring  a 
curse.  Thirdly,  it  is  an  excellence  in  the 
Karmic  doctrine  that  by  teaching  that  the 
wrongdoer  must  himself  unavoidably  eat 
the  fruit  of  every  single  evil  deed,  it  em- 
phasizes the  inference  that  he  cannot  expiate 
his  demerit  by  any  amount  of  meritorious 
deeds.  The  Christian  who  believes  in  sal- 
vation by  faith  alone,  holds  the  same  position. 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       1 23 

The  Mahabharata  poem  says:  "Like  fishes 
going  against  a  current  of  water,  the  acts 
of  a  past  life  are  flung  back  on  the  actor." 
There  are  some  schools  of  Hinduism  which 
allow  for  grace  to  set  aside  the  punishment 
of  evil  deeds.  But  even  they  do  not  logically 
teach  that  a  man  by  his  own  good  deeds 
can  remove  the  evil  of  his  wrong  deeds.  In 
this  too  the  Hindu  doctrine  resembles  the 
Christian,  which  teaches  that,  even  if  a  man 
had  never  committed  a  sin,  his  having  lived 
righteously  would  not  bring  him  a  salvation 
earned  by  his  good  deeds,  for  by  living  a 
good  life  he  had  simply  done  his  duty  and 
no  more.  A  fourth  excellence  in  the  Karmic 
doctrine  is  its  emphasis  on  personal  punish- 
ment, because  every  one  must  himself  reap 
the  fruit  of  every  one  of  his  deeds.  A  Hin- 
du book  says:  "As  amongst  a  thousand  cows 
a  calf  knows  its  mother,  so  the  deed  done 
before  finds  out  its  doer."  While  this  is 
plainly  the  intention,  the  imperfections  of 
the  doctrine  in  actual  life  work  out  a  dif- 
ferent result,  viz. :  since  the  sorrows  and 
trials  of  this  life  are  deemed  by  Karma  an 
expiation  not  of  deeds  done  in  this  life,  of 


124  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

which  one  can  be  conscious,  but  are  wholly 
the  fruit  of  unknown  evil  deeds  in  an  un- 
remembered  past,  and  since  any  sins  in  this 
present  life  are  not  to  be  expiated  here,  but 
wholly  in  some  unknown  future,  the  sense  of 
guilt  and  of  punishment  for  sin  must  be 
very  light.  Here  again  are  arrest  and  de- 
generacy. 

While  we  should  recognize  such  advan- 
tages in  the  Karma  doctrine,  we  need  also 
to  give  attention  to  its  very  serious  defects. 
The  first  significant  fact  is  that  the  highest 
Hinduism  itself  practically  criticises  and  ex- 
presses dissatisfaction  with  the  Karma  sys- 
tem. This  comes  from  a  doctrine  which  al- 
ways accompanies  the  Karmic  doctrine,  viz.: 
the  desire  and  the  way  of  escape  from  Karma. 
If  the  Karma  system  were  entirely  satisfactory 
morally,  why  should  Release  from  an  entirely 
satisfactory  system  be  desired?  Yet  every 
Hindu  desires  and  hopes  to  be  released  from 
that  system.  This  shows  that,  at  bottom,  both 
the  Hindu  heart  and  mind  are  not  satisfied 
with  the  outcome  of  the  Karma  idea.  If  the 
Karma  system  were  morally  satisfactory,  it 
would  not  be  moral  to  desire  to  escape  from 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       12^ 

it.  The  consistent  pantheism  of  the  thorough- 
going Vedanta  school  is  logically  a  clear 
expression  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the 
Karma  system  as  a  whole,  for,  according  to 
pure  pantheism,  a  man  can  be  deemed  to 
have  reached  his  goal  only  when  he  has  risen 
into  a  state  in  which  morality  and  con- 
sciousness are  transcended. 

The  assumption  of  the  Karmic  doctrine  is 
that  every  man's  condition  in  this  state  of 
existence  is  exactly  the  fruit  of  his  deeds  in 
a  previous  unremembered  soul-embodiment 
The  first  criticism  on  this  position  is  that, 
of  necessity,  it  is  and  can  be,  only  an  un- 
provable hypothesis.  For,  though  occasion- 
ally a  man  may  claim  that  he  remembers 
some  of  the  experience  of  a  previous  exist- 
ence, manifestly  that  claim  cannot  be  tested 
whether  it  is  true  or  not.  The  law  of  Karma 
also  conceives  that  there  must  be  an  absolute 
proportion  between  the  heinousness  of  an 
evil  deed  and  the  unpleasantness  of  its  fruit 
in  the  next  state  of  existence.  But  the  appeal 
to  life,  which  must  be  the  last  test  of  every- 
thing, shows  that  in  the  realm  of  human 
experience  this  is  not  true.     New  influences 


126  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

are  constantly  coming  in  to  disturb  the  exact 
relation  between  the  cause  and  the  efifect  of 
any  single  deed.  This  uncertainty  as  to  what 
additional  and  disturbing  elements  may  have 
come  in  to  modify  the  effect  of  actions  is  a 
fact  of  every-day  life  which  distinctly  de- 
nies the  basal  assumption  of  the  law  of 
Karma.  The  theory  of  evolution,  which  is 
accepted  by  all  modern  science,  recognizes 
the  universal  principle  that  while  a  favourable 
environment  promotes  the  development  of  a 
certain  species,  an  unfavourable  environment 
extinguishes  that  species.  The  same  law 
applies  to  moral  causes  and  effects.  The 
law  of  Karma  contravenes  this  well-known 
law. 

This  defect  in  the  Karma  doctrine  is  one 
main  cause  of  the  Hindu's  lack  of  in- 
terest in  history.  To  the  believer  in  Karma 
history  can  have  no  interest  or  significance, 
because  it  is  merely  a  predetermined,  un- 
avoidable sequence  of  events.  To  us,  history 
is  full  of  moral  stimulus,  because  it  shows 
how  one  man  can  affect,  for  good  or  evil, 
the  destinies  of  other  men  and  even  nations. 
Though  to  a  limited  degree  the  Karma  doc- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       1 27 

trine  allows  that  a  man  can  influence  the  lives 
of  others,  yet  he  cannot  really  influence  the 
destiny  of  a  single  individual.  That  destiny 
is  unalterably  fixed  for  each  individual  by 
his  Karma  in  a  previous  stage  of  existence. 
AH  that  one  can  do  for  another  in  this 
world  is  to  provide  a  means  by  which  that 
other's  previously  determined  condition  may 
be  fulfilled.  He  can  help  others  only  because, 
in  a  previous  existence,  they  so  acted  as  to 
receive  in  this  life,  from  him  or  from  others, 
the  help  which  they  may  thus  receive.  If  a 
man  harms  others,  it  is  only  because  in  a 
previous  existence  they  acted  so  as  to  receive 
this  harm  from  him  or  from  some  one.  But 
the  experience  of  life  shows  the  unsoundness 
of  this  assumption  in  the  Karma  doctrine, 
because  the  consequences  of  both  good  and 
evil  actions  are  more  or  less  being  avoided 
every  day.  "  If  human  wisdom  can  counter- 
act and,  by  transforming,  can  nullify  the 
natural  evil  consequences  of  many  deeds, 
much  more  may  the  divine  purpose,  which 
is  working  itself  out  in  the  evolution  of  the 
universe,  make  for  righteousness  and  for- 
giveness,  in  spite  of  evil  deeds  of  men  of 


128  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

which  the  natural  consequence  would  be 
universal  ruin."  While  the  law  of  Karma 
strictly  teaches  that  there  can  be  no  deviation 
from  inevitable  results,  there  are  some  schools 
of  Hindu  thought  which  teach  that,  under 
some  circumstances,  the  gods  can  modify 
the  consequences  of  actions. 

Still  another  defect  in  the  Karma  doctrine 
when  logically  accepted  is  that  the  entire 
purpose  of  the  present  order  is  judicial,  and 
not  one  for  the  education  and  formation  of 
character:  the  only  object  and  purpose  of 
the  present  is  the  requital  of  the  past.  As 
a  response  to  conscience,  the  doctrine  of 
transmigration  had  a  real  moral  value,  be- 
cause it  recognized  the  need  that,  since  full 
reward  and  punishment  of  good  and  evil  does 
not  appear  in  the  present  life,  this  should  and 
will  be  meted  out  in  the  next  stage  of  exist- 
ence. So,  despite  the  fatalistic  implications 
in  the  doctrine  that  one's  condition  in  this 
life  is  the  equivalent  of  one's  previous  life, 
it  did  imply  that  the  divine  powers  see  that 
human  goodness  and  badness  get  their  mer- 
ited deserts.  This  gave  importance  to  living 
right  in  the  present  world. 


SOME   FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       1 29 

But  the  fully  developed  transmigration 
doctrine  makes  the  present  world  to  have 
only  judicial  significance,  for  not  only  is 
the  future  to  be  a  requital  of  the  present, 
but  the  present  is  merely  a  requital  of  one's 
actions  in  a  past  existence.  However,  there 
can  be  no  inspiration  in  life,  if  the  only 
meaning  and  purpose  of  this  life  are  simply 
to  expiate  a  past  unremembered  life.  In 
the  Christian  view,  man's  object  in  life  is  to 
fit  himself  into  the  high  purpose  of  the  one 
Father  of  all  men,  who  is  ever  trying  to 
make  the  most  of  every  human  being,  and  is 
helping  him  to  do  his  part.  But  in  the 
Karma  system  there  is  no  universal  purpose 
except  the  judicial  one  of  requital  for  the 
past.  According  to  that  system,  justice  for 
the  sake  of  justice  is  "  like  an  attribute  with 
no  substance  in  which  to  adhere;  judgment 
for  the  sake  of  judgment  is  like  a  prison 
system  without  any  State." 

When  the  Hindu  mind,  in  its  effort  to  at- 
tain intellectual  consistency,  developed  these 
thorough-going  doctrines  of  Karma  and 
transmigration  and  release  therefrom  by  ab- 
sorption into  the  unconscious  Brahma,  I  be- 


130  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

lieve  that  it  was  God  Himself  who  showed 
the  Hindu  the  inadequacy  of  his  metaphysic. 
The  heart  of  the  Hindu  protested  against  the 
doctrine  that  the  only  end  of  existence  in  this 
world  is  the  judicial  one  of  requiring  the 
soul  to  consume  the  fruits  of  its  action  in  a 
previous  existence.  The  heart  of  the  Hindu, 
like  the  heart  of  men  everywhere,  believes 
that  beyond  this  life  there  is  something  truly 
good,  and  that  we  can  so  live  in  this  world  as 
to  attain  that  future  infinite  good.  Under 
God  it  was  this  deep  conviction  of  the  human 
soul  which  led  the  Hindu  to  be  dissatisfied 
with  the  law  of  Karma,  which,  if  unmodified, 
would  have  made  endless  re-births  and  end- 
less existence  the  necessary  unavoidable  fate 
of  every  one.  So  the  doctrine  of  Release 
from  the  working  of  Karma  through  knowl- 
edge and  thereby  through  absorption  into 
the  only  Reality,  led  the  Hindu  to  accept, 
and  to  find  satisfaction  in  the  doctrine  of 
absorption,  because  it  seemed  better  than  the 
Karmic  doctrine  of  endless  re-births  and  re- 
deaths. 

For  the  same  reason  some  men  now  com- 
mit  suicide,    blindly    assuming    that   escape 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       13I 

from  what  appears  unbearable  evil  and 
hoped-for  cessation  of  existence  are  better 
than  the  painful  experiences  of  their  present 
lives.  In  doctrine,  as  in  life,  suicide  is  con- 
fession. The  fact  that  the  Hindu  thinker 
preferred  eternal  suicide  to  the  eternal  work- 
ing of  the  Karmic  system  is  proof  positive 
that  that  doctrine  did  not  satisfy  his  heart 
nor  his  intellect.  So  the  Hindu  himself 
declares  the  basal  doctrine  of  Hinduism  to 
be  unsatisfactory.  Because  this  release  from 
the  hopelessness  of  the  Karma  doctrine  was 
a  desirable  change,  I  believe  that  even  the 
unsatisfying  transmigration  doctrine  was  the 
Hindu  thinker's  response  to  a  suggestion 
from  God;  though  an  entirely  satisfying  re- 
sponse will  only  come  when  the  Hindu  ac- 
cepts as  the  master  of  his  thought  and  life 
One  who  has  brought  life  and  immortality 
to  light  through   His  gospel. 

As  stated  above,  one  advantage  of  the 
Karma  doctrine  is  that  it  ofifers  a  plausible 
solution  of  the  problem  why  there  appear  so 
many  undeserved  inequalities  in  the  lot  of 
men.  By  the  Karma  doctrine  the  explana- 
tion is  clear,  viz.  this:  a  just  god  cannot  dis- 


132  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

pense  unmerited  suffering,  but  the  sufferings 
of  men  in  this  life  do  not  correspond  to  the 
deserts  of  each;  therefore,  these  sufferings 
must  be  proportioned  to  the  acts  and  deserts 
of  men  in  previous  embodiments.  Hindu 
satisfaction  with  the  Karmic  doctrine  is 
mainly  due  to  this  apparently  satisfactory  so- 
lution. Had  the  Hindu  known  the  experi- 
ence and  teaching  of  Christ  that  it  is  god- 
like to  bear  undeserved  suffering  in  order  to 
help  and  to  save  weak  and  erring  fellow  men, 
he  might  not  for  centuries  have  been  con- 
tent with  the  assumption  that  suffering  un- 
merited trouble  is  an  injustice  and  an  evil, 
unless  it  is  a  requital  for  wrongdoing  in  a 
previous  existence.  God  made  the  Hindu 
feel  that  the  author  of  the  universe  could 
not  be  unjust;  and  so,  groping  after  the  un- 
known god,  the  Hindu  thought  out  the  doc- 
trines of  Karma  and  transmigration  because 
he  had  not  found  any  other  explanation  of 
the  inequalities  of  life.  So  hard  is  it  for  men, 
even  after  long  thought,  to  see  God  as  He  is, 
and  to  understand  the  mystery  of  suffering, 
when  they  are  unaided  by  the  revelation  of 
God   through   a   perfect  human   life,  whose 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       1 33 

controlling  passion  was  through  unmerited 
suffering  to  win  men  to  their  heavenly 
Father. 

The  final  defect  of  the  Karma-transmigra- 
tion doctrine  is  that  consistency  led  the 
Hindu  thinker  to  take  an  additional  logical 
step,  viz.:  to  consider  the  phenomenal  world 
as  entirely  illusory  and  unreal.  Both  the 
mind  and  heart  of  the  Hindu  groping  after 
God  would  not  rest  until  it  could  believe 
that  it  had  found  ultimate  reality.  The 
Hindu  explanation  of  the  world  on  the 
Karma-transmigration  theory  did  not  satis- 
factorily explain  the  mystery  of  the  universe. 
There  seemed  to  the  Hindu  mind  and  heart 
an  unreality  in  life.  Therefore,  the  Hindu 
heart  even  more  than  the  Hindu  mind  said 
for  substance:  "  The  world  being  unreal,  leap 
into  the  only  reality;  leap  into  the  absolute 
unknown,  and  thereby  become  absorbed  into 
the  great  reality."  I  cannot  help  interpret- 
ing this  leap  as,  at  bottom,  a  response  to  the 
Spirit  of  God.  The  Karma  doctrine  is  pessi- 
mistic. The  doctrine  of  absorption  into  the 
ultimate  reality  was  the  optimistic  wish  to 
leap  from  unreality  into  reality.     This  long- 


134  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ing  is  thus  expressed  in  the  Brihad  Aranyaka 
Upanishad: 

"  From  the  unreal  lead  me  to  the  real. 
From  darkness  lead  me  to  the  light. 
From  death  lead  me  to  immortality.'* 

Yet  here  was  another  characteristic  Illustra- 
tion of  much  of  India's  thought  and  life;  a 
strange  excess  of  inference.  The  pendulum 
swings  to  the  opposite  extreme.  Here  I 
stop  with  this  analysis  of  the  most  funda- 
mental and  universal  doctrine  of  India,  but 
in  the  final  lecture  shall  again  refer  to  it  in 
an  attempt  to  show  how  this  may  be  con- 
sidered and  used  as  a  preparation  for  the 
Christ. 

Hinduism  is  not  only,  and  not  mainly,  a 
combination  of  religious  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices. It  is  also  a  social  organization  resting 
on  the  institution  of  caste,  which  is  the  uni- 
versal and  determinative  feature  of  every- 
day Hinduism.  So,  in  an  interpretation  of 
India's  religious  history,  at  least  a  brief  an- 
alysis of  this  institution  is  needed.  Though 
it   is   not   uncommon   to   consider   the   caste 


SOME  FUND/ MENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       135 

system  as  wholly  a  device  of  the  devil,  it  can 
be  shown  that,  in  this  institution  too,  can  be 
seen  the  hand  of  God.  Few  institutions 
which  have  very  wide  acceptance  and  long 
life  in  a  large  community  are  wholly  bad. 
The  assumption  that  God  is  ever  seeking  His 
human  children  and  that  they  are  ever 
groping  after  Him,  though  often  in  igno- 
rance and  sin,  would  indicate  that  such  an 
institution  was  another  illustration  of  the 
struggle  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh 
and  of  the  flesh  against  the  spirit.  And 
the  greater  the  final  victory  of  the  flesh  over 
the  spirit,  the  greater  the  need  of  the  Christ, 
and  the  reason  for  the  expectation  that  when 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  transforms  the  institution, 
its  better  elements  will  be  not  destroyed,  but 
fulfilled.  In  social  institutions,  as  well  as  in 
religious  thought  and  practice,  the  Christ 
lives  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil. 

That  caste  started  from  a  natural  ethnical 
basis  is  shown  first  from  the  original  word 
for  caste  which  means  colour  (varna)  ;  and 
secondly,  from  the  early  habit  continued  to 
the  present,  of  considering  the  Aryans  "  twice 
born,"  and  the  non-Aryans  only  "  once  born." 


136  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HI  .TORY 

ffWhile  caste  started  with  race  distinction,  a 
second  and  most  influential  cause  of  classi- 
fication was  occupation.  The  third  main 
working  principle  was  geographical  locatic^ 
The  devil  had  nothing  to  do  with  these  pow- 
erful and  controlling  influences  of  ethnical, 
occupational,  and  geographical  character, 
which  originally  determined  the  social  status. 
|As  the  Aryans  spread  through  the  land  and 
more  or  less  mingled  with  the  aborigines,  and 
as  wars  and  the  requirements  of  life  caused 
manifold  cross-divisions  of  location  and  occu- 
pation, complexity  arose  in  the  social  organi- 
zation, and  innumerable  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions of  castes  easily  aroseTl  There  are 
hundreds  of  subdivisions  of  the  Brahman 
class,  and  thousands  of  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions of  other  castes  and  outcasts.  In 
many  of  these  distinctions  there  is  nothing 
blameworthy.  They  exist  in  every  com- 
munity on  earth.  And  where  the  organiza- 
tion of  society  is  quite  complex,  the  distinc- 
tions are  most  numerous.  Moreover,  it  is 
a  part  of  the  divine  economy  that  many  of 
these  distinctions  are,  on  the  whole,  helpful 
to  society.     Regarding,  as  we  now  do,  society 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       1 37 

as  an  organism,  is  it  not  correct  to  say  the 
social  body  is  one,  but  hath  many  members; 
and  God  has  set  the  members,  each  one  in  the 
body,  according  to  ethnical,  occupational, 
and  geographical  considerations,  as  it  pleased 
Him;  and  if  all  were  one  member,  where 
were  the  body?  There  are  many  members, 
but  one  body. 

Yet,  though  Hindu  caste  started  on  this 
natural  basis,  it  has,  to  a  sad  extent,  shown 
that  service  and  mutual  helpfulness  were  too 
often  not  the  controlling  considerations  of 
the  favoured  members,  but  pride  of  position 
and  indifference  or  disregard  of  the  less  fa- 
voured. It  is  another  illustration  from  India's 
history  of  the  age-long  universal  struggle  of 
the  flesh  against  the  spirit,  in  which  the  for- 
mer, alas  too  often,  wins  the  victory.  Under 
the  choking  influence  of  the  letter  and  the 
flesh,  the  mutual  helpfulness,  which  was  the 
beginning  of  the  caste  movement,  has  so  bound 
its  spirit  that  India  now  calls  out:  "Who 
shall  deliver  me  from  the  bondage  of  this 
death?" 

A  little  more  detail   about  the  formation 
and   development  of   the   caste  system   is   as 


138  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

follows:) In  primitive  Aryan  Society,  each 
father  was  the  priest  of  his  family.  Grad- 
ually some  men  in  the  community  became 
learned  and  wise  in  the  conduct  of  religious 
rites  and  sacrifices.  Such  eminence  became 
hereditary  in  families.  The  religious  hymns 
and  liturgies  were  not  written,  but  were 
passed  from  generation  to  generation  by  oral 
teaching.  The  knowledge  of  such  hymns  and 
liturgies  became  a  valuable  property.  The 
families  which  got  a  hereditary  claim  to  con- 
duct religious  ceremonies  and  to  interpret  the 
hymns  and  liturgies  naturally  did  all  they 
could  to  make  the  ceremonies  imposing. 
There  grew  up  a  hierarchy  among  all  such 
ministrants.  The  most  learned  wrote  out 
religious  books.  Then,  as  the  ceremonies  be- 
came more  elaborate  and  the  priests  more 
numerous,  the  priestly  class  of  Brahmans  was 
formed.  From  their  learning  and  from  their 
connection  with  religion  the  Brahmans  be- 
came the  most  influential  and  highest  caste.  I 
No  explanation  is  needed  for  the  develop-' 
ment  of  the  next  highest  caste,  that  of  kings 
and  warriors ;  nor  of  the  third  caste,  that  of  the 
farmers;  nor  of  the  fourth  original  caste,  that 


SOME   FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       1 39 

of  the  servile  community,  called  Sudras,  who 
are  mostly  from  the  conquered  aborgines. 
Yet  this  development  was  not  by  any  means 
always  peacefully  effected.  /The  exclusive 
claims  of  the  Brahmans  were  often  objected 
to,  and  sometimes  were  successfully  resisted, 
by  the  warrior  class,  some  of  whose  members 
were  thoughtful  and  learned  and  pious.  Also 
members  of  the  third,  or  cultivator  caste, 
doubtless  sometimes  aspired  to  and  were 
received  into  the  warrior  caste.  But  the 
Brahmans  have  usually  been  shrewd,  and  by 
not  aspiring  to  be  kings,  but  the  guides  and 
counsellors  of  all,  they  have  usually  won 
obedience  from  all  classes. 

One  of  the  proper  influences  which  origi- 
nally brought  about  the  caste  system  was  the 
desire  and  efifort  to  maintain  family  and 
tribal  purity.  Modern  society  has  not  yet 
adequately  learned  how  to  prohibit  and  re- 
strain undesirable  intermarriages.  The  nu- 
merous wars  and  conquests  of  the  Aryans 
constantly  exposed  them  to  illicit  and  unde- 
sirable sexual  and  marriage  relations.  In 
the  effort  to  limit  such  evil,  elaborate  caste 
restrictions  about  marriage  were  formed  and 


140  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

somewhat  enforced.  Another  legitimate  in- 
fluence in  developing  caste  was  the  economic 
consideration  which  developed  trade-guilds 
in  Europe  and  is  causing  trade-unions  in  most 
countries  at  this  time.  Caste  regulations  have 
crystallized  in  every  occupation,  and  inter- 
nally have  done  some  good.  Caste  as  a 
trade-union  insists  on  and  secures  the  proper 
training  of  the  youth  of  the  craft;  it  exerts 
much  influence  in  regulating  the  wages  of  its 
members,  deals  with  trade  delinquents,  pro- 
motes good  fellowship  and  charity  among 
its  members,  by  public  opinion  and  penalties 
in  a  general  way  it  keeps  the  standard  of 
thought  and  life  at  a  moderate  level,  all 
enforced  by  public  opinion  and  caste  rule. 
For  keeping  society  at  a  moderate  level  and 
preventing  social  decay,  there  has  never  been 
developed  a  force  like  caste.  So  far,  so  good. 
But  the  good  is  not  only  the  worst  enemy 
of  the  best,  it  tends  to  decay.  So  has  it  been 
with  the  caste  system  in  India.  Even  at  its 
best  it  could  only  keep  society  at  a  dead 
level.  However,  it  not  only  prevented  its 
members  from  slipping  down,  but  also  from 
rising.     Past  custom  became  not  only  con- 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF   HINDUISM       14I 

trolling,  but  tyrannical.     In  no  social  system 
have    individual    initiative    and    motive    for 
aspiration   and   opportunity   for  new   attain- 
ments been   so   absolutely  and   so   ruthlessly 
rep ressed.     One^ixlJi_o|_ jhe__£02ijdation   0^ 
India  to-da^jire  by  caste  classified  as  "  un- 
touchables."    According  to  strict  caste  rules 
not  only  the  touch,  but  the  shadow,  of  any 
one  of  these  millions  causes  pollution.     Such 
a   result  has   crushed   hope   and   self-respect 
out  of  this  immense  section  of  the  body  poli- 
tic, not  only  to  their  own  injury,  but  also  to 
the  impoverishment  of  the  entire  community. 
While    this    injury   has    come    to    the    de- 
pressed classes,  the  caste  system  has  wrought, 
perhaps,    even    greater    injury    to    the    high 
castes.     It  has  made  them  proud,  haughty, 
unsympathetic,  and  unprogressive.     Accord- 
ing to  caste,  a  man  is  polluted  by  going  from 
India  to  a  foreign  country  for  an  education. 
This  excessive  restriction  has  done  countless 
harm    to    India's    progress.      Originally    in-, 
tended  only  to  guard  purity  in  the  forming 
of    marriage     alliances,     it     has     needlessly 
hedged   marriage   about   with   harassing   re- 
strictions.    Originally  intended  to  help  reli- 


142  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

gion  and  to  assure  that  religious  service 
shall  be  regularly  and  properly  carried  on, 
caste  has  become  a  most  tyrannical  and  re- 
pressive organization,  choking  the  spirit  of 
religion.  To-day  the  majority  of  even  intelli- 
gent people  dare  not  follow  their  consciences 
by  refraining  from  religious  practices  which 
they  despise,  or  by  publicly  expressing  their 
true  beliefs.  Those  who  are  not  Indians  can 
have  slight  knowledge  of  the  tremendous 
annoyance  and  injury  which  intelligent  men 
and  women  suffer  from  the  caste  system  as 
it  now  exists.  The  best  Indians  are  them- 
selves constantly  bewailing  the  injury  which 
this  social  organization  is  doing  to  them 
and  to  their  country. 

This  analysis  of  the  origin,  the  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages  of  the  caste  system 
has,  I  hope,  been  an  interpretation  of  how 
the  spirit  and  the  flesh  have  struggled  in 
India,  and  how,  alas!  lower  considerations 
have  often  won  the  victory  over  higher  ones. 
"  Caste  is  the  arrested  attempt  at  the  or- 
ganization of  society  on  lines  which,  at  the 
beginning,  recognized  the  organic  unity  of 
society  as  a  whole."    At  first  it  implied  and 


SOME  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  HINDUISM       1 43 

required  the  reciprocal  helpfulness  of  all 
its  parts.  It  started  with  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  every  part  of  society  should  con- 
sider itself  intended  for,  and  bound  to  help 
every  other  part,  and  that  each  could  best 
serve  even  itself  by  unselfishly  serving  every 
other  part.  But  no  social  system  ever  so 
thoroughly  lost  recognition  of  the  principle 
of  noblesse  oblige.  The  upper  classes  mis- 
understood and  misapplied  the  only  legiti- 
mate basis  of  privilege,  viz.:  the  larger  op- 
portunity and  larger  obligation  of  glad  and 
unselfish  helpfulness  to  others.  Then,  of 
course,  all  society  was  debased. 

Perhaps  the  upper  castes  have,  on  the 
whole,  been  the  worst  sufferers,  because,  by 
their  interpretation  of  the  reasons  of  caste 
distinctions,  they  have  assumed  that  the  lower 
castes  existed  only  for  the  good  of  the  upper, 
instead  of  the  reverse.  This  has  made  them, 
as  a  rule,  selfish,  proud,  and  inconsiderate. 
Caste  was  originally  organized  to  be,  and  to 
a  certain  extent  has  been,  a  means  of  giving 
individuals  the  guidance  and  strength  of 
custom  in  doing  what  was  deemed  right, 
which,  without  such  guidance  and  aid,  in- 


144  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

dividuals  would  not  so  uniformly  do.  But 
when  caste  reversed  its  only  legitimate  basis 
that  glad  service  is  the  natural  crown  of 
special  privilege,  it  lost  its  meaning  and 
value.  In  India  it  has  become  tyranny.  In 
religion  it  has  promoted  formalism,  hypoc- 
risy, and  pride.  In  society  it  has  been  the 
chief  cause  of  arrest  in  progress  and  in  mu- 
tual helpfulness.  In  contact  with  Christian 
principles  and  modern  ideas,  it  is  rapidly 
disintegrating,  but  under  the  influence  of  the 
Christ,  the  basal  idea  of  this  social  organiza- 
tion can  be,  and  I  believe,  is  to  be  fulfilled. 


IV 

THE  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS  OF  HINDUISM 

IN  religion,  as  in  physical  nature,  the  per- 
sistence of  any  phase  of  life  is  indubita- 
ble evidence  that  there  was  some  need 
of  that  development  and  that  it  possessed 
inherent  force.  For  at  least  five  thousand 
years  the  varying  phases  of  Hinduism  have  ex- 
pressed and  have  given  some  measure  of  satis- 
faction to  the  religious  needs  of  an  immense 
number  of  human  beings.  That  is  evidence 
enough  that  such  a  system  had  elements  of 
worth  and  power.  On  the  assumption  under- 
lying these  lectures  that  God  has  never  left 
any  community  without  witness  of  Himself, 
and  that  the  divine  Spirit,  on  account  of 
His  gracious  and  universal  character,  must 
ever  be  at  least  attempting  to  guide  and 
teach  men,  we  should  expect  to  find  in  the 
Hindu  religion  elements  of  power.  On  the 
other    hand,    the    history    of    the    i^ligious 

145 


146  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

thought  and  light,  even  of  peoples  who  call 
themselves  Christian,  shows  how  sadly  per- 
sistent and  forceful  has  been  the  struggle  of 
lower  against  higher  considerations.  Still 
more  should  we  expect  to  find  elements  of 
great  weakness  in  a  religion  like  Hinduism, 
which  has  not  had  the  privilege  of  a  revela- 
tion of  the  Christ.  The  present  lecture  is  an 
attempt  to  point  out  some  of  the  greatness 
and  some  of  the  weakness  of  the  higher 
Hinduism.* 

It  is  needless  to  show  that  popular  Hin- 
duism is  doomed.  Its  features  are  super- 
stition, degrading  ceremonialism,  polytheism, 
idolatry,  and  all  the  undesirable  character- 
istics of  caste.  One  clear,  indubitable  evi- 
dence that  the  divine  Spirit  has  not  been 
inactive  in  India  is  that  for  centuries  many 
earnest  Indians  have  protested  against  those 
bad  characteristics  of  popular  Hinduism;  and 
that  sometimes  the  protests  have  resulted  in 
considerable  reforms  for  a  considerable  time. 
Nowadays  also,  many  spiritual-minded  and 
earnest  non-Christians,  as  well  as  Christians, 

•In  this  lecture  great  obligation  is  acknowledged  to  Articles 
in  the  Contemporary  Review  by  J.  N.  Farquhar,  M.A. 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 47 

are  working  hard  to  lead  the  followers  of 
popular  Hinduism  to  leave  it  for  purer 
thought  and  better  ways.  All  agree  that 
popular  Hinduism  is  doomed.  But,  thereby, 
the  higher  Hinduism  is  being  released  from 
some  of  its  incumbrances,  and  its  excellences 
are  being  better  known  and  more  appre- 
ciated in  the  West,  as  well  as  in  the  East. 
Therefore,  it  is  necessary  and  fair  to  look 
into  both  the  greatness  and  the  weakness  of 
this  higher  Hinduism.  If  its  best  features 
are  the  work  of  the  divine  Spirit,  then  to  the 
believer  in  the  Christ  those  features  should 
certainly  be  an  encouragement.  Every  true 
element  in  any  religion  is  something  which 
the  Christ  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil. 

Hinduism,  as  a  whole,  has  many  elements 
of  power:  elements  tending  to  bring  that 
religion  to  the  highest  grade,  yet  never  reach- 
ing that  grade  because  those  good  features  are 
connected  with  some  fatal  elements  of  weak- 
ness. The  first  mark  of  greatness  in  the 
higher  Hinduism  is  the  acuteness  and  con- 
sistency of  its  thought.  Probably  no  reli- 
gion in  the  world  equals  Hinduism  in  in- 
tellectual  keenness.     Notice   that   I    do   not 


148  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

say  that  Hindu  thought  excels  in  correctness, 
but  only  that  it  excels  in  keenness  and  in 
consistency  from  assumed  premisses.  In  in- 
tellectual vigour,  Hinduism  is  a  great  re- 
ligion. For  millenniums  it  has  had  thinkers 
who  have  patiently,  insistently  meditated  on 
the  basal  questions  of  ontology,  on  the  spirit, 
on  the  problem  of  evil,  on  the  highest  good, 
and  how  to  attain  to  this.  And  while  they 
differed  among  themselves,  yet  in  the  main, 
they  have  thought  these  profound  questions 
through  till  they  have  come  to  consistent 
conclusions.  Had  their  presuppositions  been 
correct,  they  would  have  come  to  a  better 
conclusion.  Despite  differences  of  assump- 
tion and  of  intermediate  inferences,  there  has 
been  a  remarkable  thoroughness  and  con- 
sistency in  their  final  conclusions.  Prac- 
tically all  Hindu  schools  believe  in  a  monistic 
philosophy.  The  West  is  late  in  a  growing 
tendency  to  the  same  general  position. 

Two  assumptions  about  the  phenomenal 
universe  and  about  ultimate  reality  underlie 
all  Hindu  thought.  The  first  assumption  is 
that  the  world  exists  solely  that  the  soul 
may  consume   the   fruit  of  its  actions   in   a 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 49 

previous  stage  of  existence.  If  true,  this 
hypothesis  would  give  a  system  of  strict  jus- 
tice, bringing  to  every  one  reward  and  pun- 
ishment in  exact  measure  for  the  good  or 
evil  done  by  him  aforetime.  Also,  if  this 
were  true,  then  consistently  the  world-process 
must  be,  as  Hindu  thought  asserts,  eternal, 
for  otherwise  there  would  be  no  explanation 
of  its  beginning  and  no  justification  for 
ending  it.  The  second  assumption  is  that 
only  the  divine  is  real,  and  that  everything 
phenomenal  is  unreal.  Both  assumptions  are 
due  to  long  meditation  on  the  mysteries  of 
life  with  the  desire  to  think  through  to  sim- 
ple, ultimate  truth.  Granted  the  two  prem- 
isses, that  the  world-process  is  solely  retribu- 
tive and  that  the  only  reality  is  that  which 
is  behind  the  apparent,  the  Hindu  conclu- 
sion logically  follows,  viz.:  the  one  who 
knows  the  truth  should  seek  escape  from  the 
sorrow  and  unreality  of  the  world  by  absorp- 
tion into  the  real.  Some  thinkers  in  the 
West  also  have  drawn  this  same  conclusion, 
whose  life  has  not  been  spent  in  sturdy  hand- 
to-hand  grapple  with  the  troubles  of  the 
world,  and  who  have  not  found  in  the  Christ 


150  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life,  but,  like 
Hindu  thinkers,  have  imagined  that  full- 
orbed  truth  about  fundamentals  can  be  se- 
cured by  lonely  meditation. 

The  first  Hindu  assumption  is  a  great  con- 
ception, for  it  fully  recognizes  the  immensity 
of  the  unmerited  sorrows  and  inequalities 
of  the  world,  yet  holds  to  the  inevitable 
connection  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  moral,  as 
in  the  physical  wodd,  and,  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  a  personal  and  loving  God,  it  finds 
the  only  logical  solution  in  an  endless  and 
just  retributive  world-process.  The  second 
assumption  also  is  a  great  conception,  for  it 
recognizes,  that  despite  the  perplexity  and 
seeming  unreality  of  visible  and  experienced 
processes,  there  is  a  great  reality  underlying 
the  universe.  And  despite  the  natural  pessi- 
mism of  the  second  assumption,  there  is  an 
underlying  optimism  in  the  conclusion  from 
the  two  premisses,  viz.:  that  it  is  possible 
to  escape  from  the  unreal  to  the  real,  and 
also  an  underlying  courage  in  the  determina- 
tion, and  effort,  at  all  costs,  to  effect  that 
escape. 

The  thorough-going  qualities  of  these  two 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     151 

assumptions  and  of  their  conclusions,  account 
for  a  great  many  strange  accompaniments 
of  Hinduism.  The  assumed  unreality  of 
the  world  has  easily  condoned  and  even 
encouraged  belief  in  innumerable  deities 
who  are  not  themselves  the  ultimate  reality, 
but  who  may  be  the  means  of  communicating 
with  the  Incommunicable.  For  the  same 
reason  this  philosophy  allows  idols  to  the  un- 
enlightened. Also  the  unreality  of  the  world 
teaches  that  the  human  body  has  no  value 
and  should  be  subjected  to  asceticism.  Or- 
dered society  is  a  delusive  attempt  to  make 
men  satisfied  with  an  existence  which  should 
rather  be  made  uncomfortable.  Religious 
ceremonies  are  an  idle  and  even  a  selfish 
search  for  vain  blessing  from  unreal  gods. 
Knowledge  is  the  only  thing  to  be  desired, 
for  only  by  knowledge  that  the  world  is  un- 
real and  that  what  is  behind  the  phenomenal 
is  the  real,  can  one  escape  from  transmigra- 
tion, and  from  the  ocean  of  vain  sense 
impressions  to  the  bliss  of  absorption  into  the 
ultimate  Reality.  The  clear  evidence  that 
this  thorough-going  and  large  conception  has 
had  great  power  in  weaning  men  from  what 


152  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

seemed  low  into  strenuous  sacrifice  for  the 
highest  is  seen  in  the  completeness  and  eager- 
ness with  which  countless  Hindu  ascetics 
have  subjected  their  bodies  to  nameless  tor- 
ture in  their  sincere  efforts  to  attain  the 
highest  end  of  life. 

While  intellectual  acuteness  is  one  mark 
of  greatness  in  the  higher  Hinduism,  an  in- 
tensity of  reverence  for  the  Spirit  constitutes 
another  element  of  its  greatness.  Notice  that 
I  call  this  a  mark  of  the  greatness  of  Hin- 
duism, though  I  do  not  call  it  complete  or 
satisfactory.  Every  Hindu  considers  the 
Spirit  supreme.  It  is  one  of  the  anomalies 
of  Hinduism  that,  while  an  excess  of  endless 
ceremonies,  most  of  which  probably  have 
little  clear  significance  to  the  worshipper  or 
even  to  the  officiating  priest,  constitutes  the 
main  part  of  the  average  Hindu's  outward 
religion,  yet  even  the  degraded  and  super- 
stitious followers  of  popular  Hinduism  some- 
how believe  that  there  is  a  great  Spirit  be- 
hind and  beyond  every  form.  The  very 
structure  of  the  ordinary  idol-temple  is  of 
a  kind  to  awaken  a  suggestion  of  the  vague 
unknown.    The  power  of  all  Hinduism  seems 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 53 

to  me  to  lie  in  creating  a  sense  of  the  vague, 
infinite  unknown,  which,  being  invisible, 
must  be  spirit.  And  to  the  higher  Hin- 
duism the  Spirit  is  the  sole  reality.  The 
imagination  is  probably  the  most  active  and 
extraordinarily  developed  mental  power  of 
the  Hindu,  and  everywhere  the  imagination 
revels  in  the  invisible.  It  was  this  power 
which  gave  development  to  pantheism.  The 
first  type  of  monistic  philosophy  of  India  was 
not  an  impersonal  monism,  but  an  incipient 
monotheism.  Before  the  Vedantic  type  of 
pantheism  was  elaborated,  the  Indian  thinker 
posited  the  Atman,  the  spirit,  and  the  Param- 
atman,  the  great  Spirit. 

Also,  after  the  Vedantic  pantheism  be- 
came prevalent,  there  arose  eminent  thinkers, 
as  well  as  earnest  reformers,  who  developed 
a  modified  philosophy  called  the  Dvaita  or 
the  Vishisth-advaita  Vedanta,  which  insisted 
on  a  personal  character  in  every  divinity. 
This  qualified  monism  was  not  as  consistently 
logical  a  system  as  pure  pantheism,  but  it 
was  the  expression  of  true  thought  and  yearn- 
ing, and  the  leaders  in  such  movements  are 
among  the  greatest  theistic  saints  of  Hindu- 


154  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Stan.  Leaders  like  Ramanuja  and  Rama- 
nanda  developed  the  type  of  Piinduism 
which  passes  under  the  general  name  of 
Vaishnavism,  which  expresses  religion  under 
more  human  and  personal  aspects  than  most 
schools  of  Indian  thought.  It  is  Vaishnavism 
which  has  developed  the  doctrine  of  incar- 
nation, and  the  better  phases  of  those  incar- 
nations have  been  human  incarnations. 
Buddhism  and  Jainism,  while  less  spiritual, 
were  also  protests  against  ceremonialism,  the 
sacrificial  system,  and  cold  pantheism,  and 
were  systems  of  a  more  spiritual  faith  and 
ethical  life.  Above  all  the  most  influential 
poets  of  India  have  been  men  of  an  intensely 
spiritual  bent,  many  of  whom  poured  con- 
tempt on  a  materialistic  and  formal  concep- 
tion of  religion,  and  emphasized  the  spirit, 
even  when  their  popular  divinities  had  many 
unworthy  attributes.  Later  reformers,  like 
Nanak  and  Kabir,  were  men  who  magnified 
the  spirit.  The  influence  of  the  Bhagavad 
Gita,  which  is  the  most  influential  religious 
book  of  India,  is  spiritual.  Those  Christians 
do  not  deal  fairly  with  Hinduism  who  de- 
cry the  alleged  immoralities  of  the  Krishna 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 55 

of  the  later  Puranas,  and  fail  to  respect  the 
Krishna  who  is  the  spiritual  hero  of  the 
Divine  Song. 

At  bottom,  asceticism  also  is  a  real,  though 
mistaken,  emphasis  on  the  supremacy  of  the 
spirit,  and  no  religion  has  developed  asceti- 
cism like  Hinduism.  Also  though  Hinduism 
teaches  that  the  way  of  knowledge  (the 
jnanmdrga)  is  the  highest  way  of  reaching 
the  divine,  and  that  the  way  of  works  (the 
karmamdrga)  is  the  lowest  way,  it  teaches 
that  there  is  another  and  a  noble  way  of 
salvation,  viz. :  the  way  of  loving  devotion  or 
faith  (the  bhaktimdrga).  This  last  is  an 
approximation  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  faith.  Among  some  Christian 
churches  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith 
has  sometimes  come  almost  to  mean  salvation 
by  so-called  orthodox  thinking,  which  is  the 
Western  counterpart  of  what  the  Hindus 
call  their  highest  way,  that  of  salvation  by 
knowledge.  In  some  phases  of  the  higher 
Hinduism  there  is  greatness  in  the  intensity 
of  the  search  after  the  spirit. 

A  third  element  of  greatness  in  Hinduism 
is  in  its  organization.    Organization  is,  or  at 


1^6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

least  should  be,  to  religion,  what  the  body 
is  to  the  soul,  a  means  of  expressing  and 
giving  opportunity  to  the  spirit.  Instead  of 
being  a  servant  of  the  spirit,  the  human 
body  has  often  become  its  master,  and  instead 
of  expressing  has  depressed  the  spirit.  Sim- 
ilarly, in  every  religion,  the  outward  or- 
ganization has  often  debased  and  choked  the 
spirit.  Nevertheless,  as  a  sound  spirit  re- 
quires and  develops  a  sound  body,  so  every 
religion  requires  a  vigorous  organization. 
And  a  vigorous  organization  indicates  power 
in  the  religion  which  first  developed  it,  even 
though  later  that  organization  may  have 
enslaved  the  spirit. 

Hinduism  has  one  mark  of  greatness  in  an 
exceptionally  efifective  organization.  Notice 
that  I  do  not  call  it  a  satisfactory,  but  a 
great,  organization.  The  organization  of 
Hinduism  is  the  most  thorough-going  and 
efifective  religious  organization  in  the  world. 
It  consists  of  the  universal  acceptance  of 
three  elements  which  are  found  in  any  all- 
powerful  religious  organization,  viz.:  first, 
an  authoritative  and  accepted  book  or  stand- 
ard; second,  an  authoritative  and  influential 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     157 

body  of  interpreters  and  administrators  of  the 
recognized  standard;  and  third,  a  powerful 
public  sentiment,  which  uniformly  yields 
obedience  to  the  standard  and  to  its  inter- 
preters, and  which  is  crystallized  in  a  social 
system.  Hinduism  has  these  three  elements 
in  the  highest  measure. 

First,  all  Hindus  consider  the  Vedas,  i.e. 
their  oldest  religious  books,  as  inspired  and 
authoritative.  So  complete  is  the  claim  for 
their  inspiration,  that  the  priests  assert  that 
the  Vedas  were  direct  utterances  from  the 
mouth  of  God,  even  without  being  written; 
and  for  ages  they  were  not  written,  but  were 
passed  from  generation  to  generation  by  oral 
repetition.  Even  Hindu  philosophers,  whose 
belief  and  teaching  absolutely  disregard  the 
plain  meaning  of  the  Vedas,  have  always 
professed  to  draw  their  doctrine  from  those 
books,  and  to  hold  them  as  the  highest 
authority.  So  great  is  the  superstitious  rever- 
ence for  those  books,  the  evident  meaning  of 
which  only  began  to  be  made  clear  by  West- 
ern scholars  less  than  a  century  ago,  that  to- 
day in  Benares,  the  most  sacred  city  of 
Hinduism,  Brahmans,  who  are  fairly  intelli- 


158  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

gent  on  many  things,  actually  believe  that 
these  simple,  ancient  writings  contain  ac- 
counts and  predictions  of  all  modern  science 
and  discovery,  that  they  show  that  the  Vedic 
writers  knew  of  ocean  steamships,  the  tele- 
graph, automobiles,  airships,  etc.  The  or- 
ganization of  Hinduism  begins  with  the 
power  of  sacred  writings,  so  revered  and  so 
absolutely  authoritative. 

Secondly,  in  the  Brahmans  Hinduism  has 
a  body  of  strong,  determined  men,  who  are 
universally  recognized  as  the  authoritative 
interpreters  and  administrators  of  the  reli- 
gion. So  great  has  this  power  of  the  Brah- 
man been  esteemed  that  his  anger  or  his  curse 
was  dreaded  far  more  than  any  other  pos- 
sible evil. 

Thirdly,  in  caste  Hinduism  has  had  for 
its  organization  the  most  powerful  social 
system  which  the  world  has  ever  seen,  with 
practically  entire  public  sentiment  support- 
ing it.  Despite  the  restlessness  of  the  nobler 
spirits  who  have  denounced  caste,  despite 
its  vicissitudes  in  the  Buddhist  revolt  and 
temporary  ascendency,  it  has  for  thousands 
of  years  been,  and  still  is,  the  chief  power 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 59 

of  Hinduism.  For  the  most  part,  the  Brah- 
mans  have  been  the  thinkers  of  Hinduism, 
In  considerable  part,  they  have  been  the 
makers  of  a  great  literature.  But  their  chief 
achievement  has  been  their  gradually,  yet 
universally,  bringing  the  entire  religious  and 
social  system  of  many  races,  with  many  reli- 
gious types  and  degrees  of  culture,  under 
loyal  subservience  to  themselves.  And  the 
caste  system,  which  has  arisen  in  various 
ways,  has  been  the  principal  cause  of  the 
cohesion  and  power  of  Hinduism. 

A  fourth  element  of  greatness  in  Hinduism 
has  been  the  compass  and  variety  of  its  appeal 
to  the  religious  nature.  Hinduism  makes  an 
appeal  to  every  side  of  man.  As  shown 
above,  it  is  strong  in  its  intellectual  and 
spiritual  appeal,  and  its  appeal  to  the  instinct 
of  most  men  who  crave  direction  by  an 
authority  which  believes  in  itself  as  to  what 
is  true  and  right  and  what  must  be  done.  In 
addition,  Hinduism  is  rich  in  its  provision 
for  stimulating  the  craving  for  worship.  Any 
unusual  event  in  any  place,  any  striking  ob- 
ject in  nature,  any  auspicious  or  fearful  nat- 
ural force  has  made  that  place  a  holy  place, 


l6o  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

that  object  or  that  force  an  object  or  force 
worthy  of  worship.  As  in  ancient  Israel,  so  in 
Hindustan,  on  every  high  hill  and  under  every 
green  tree,  there  is  an  idol  or  some  sacred 
object  and  a  place  of  pilgrimage.  Since 
the  eye  is  the  principal  gateway  to  the  mind, 
Hinduism  provides,  through  idols  and  other 
visible  objects,  stimulus  to  worship.  The 
spirit  of  worship  is  developed  by  extensive 
and  costly  temples,  adorned  with  sculpture 
and  fresco,  illustrating  religious  myths,  and 
with  awe-inspiring,  darkened  interiors,  into 
the  mysterious  recesses  of  which  the  ordi- 
nary man  cannot  go.  At  every  gateway  of 
every  tiniest  village  is  a  temple  containing 
an  idol,  which  calls  for  some  act  of  adoration 
from  every  one  as  he  enters  or  departs  from 
the  village.  On  the  borders  of  each  village, 
and  at  many  graves,  there  is  some  structure, 
humble  or  large,  which  suggests  something 
to  be  feared  or  revered,  while  little  shrines 
abound  everywhere. 

In  early  times  sacrifices  were  a  large  part 
of  religion,  though  nowadays  they  are  more 
rare.  The  sacramental  meal  was  an  early  and 
impressive  element  of  common  worship,  and 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     l6l 

Still  continues  in  some  places  (e.g.  at  Puri, 
in  Orissa,  and  at  Pandharpur,  in  Western 
India).  Praise,  expressed  by  the  singing  of 
popular  lyrics,  often  accompanied  by  simple 
instruments  or  at  least  by  clapping  of  hands 
and  movements  of  the  body,  is  a  worthy 
part  of  worship.  In  Hinduism,  theoretically, 
no  one  should  worship  without  presenting 
some  gift,  at  least  of  flowers,  to  the  god. 

In  addition  to  visits  to  public  temples, 
shrines,  and  sacred  places,  for  the  devout 
man,  there  are  daily  rites,  prayers,  and  offer- 
ings in  the  homes,  annual  festivals,  and 
occasional  ceremonies  and  feasts  for  births, 
stated  periods  of  growth,  sickness,  death,  and 
after  death.  These  may  be  of  a  simple  and 
inexpensive  nature  for  the  poor,  or  elaborate 
and  costly  for  the  rich.  They  all  cultivate 
the  religious  nature.  In  no  religion  have 
mythology  and  hero  worship  been  so  abun- 
dant and  influential  as  in  Hinduism.  When 
these  stories  are  related  or  sung,  their  semi- 
religious  narration  holds  great  masses  spell- 
bound. Such  public  recitals  are  the  prin- 
cipal means  by  which  the  ideas  of  Hin- 
duism are  communicated  to  the  masses.     So 


1 62  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

in  manifold  ways,  every  element  of  life  is 
made  sacred  and  a  means  of  developing  the 
religious  nature.  Finally,  all  is  enforced  by 
the  priestly  class,  which  has  a  part  in  many 
of  the  minor  and  all  the  major  acts  of 
worship. 

Since  we  are  considering  the  greatness 
and  weakness  of  India's  religious  life,  as  well 
as  thought,  I  specify  as  one  element  of 
greatness  in  Hinduism,  its  power  to  promote 
the  solidarity  and  stability  of  society.  In 
a  previous  lecture  I  gave  an  analysis  of 
caste.  It  certainly  is  a  very  strong  institu- 
tion and  has  done  one  great  service  to  Indian 
society.  It  has  given  to  the  community  a 
unitedness  such  as  has  not  been  secured  else- 
where. It  has  made  the  community  really 
believe  that  all  men  who  are  in  the  Hindu 
pale  are  inseparably  linked,  are  responsible 
for  each  other,  and  must  on  no  account  and 
under  no  circumstances  be  parted  from  one 
another.  "  The  practical  result  has  been  to 
give  an  intensity  to  the  corporate  life  of  the 
Hindu  community  which  has  never  been 
exemplified  elsewhere."  This  is  a  lower  con- 
ception  than   the   Christian   doctrine  of  the 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     163 

brotherhood  of  men.  For  it  is  not  the  united- 
ness  of  every  man  with  every  other  man  as  a 
brother,  but  somewhat  like  the  unitedness  of 
interest  between  the  members  of  a  trade 
union,  whose  outlook  and  interest  are  con- 
fined  to  the  members  of  the  group. 

Another  element  of  greatness  in  Hinduism 
is  its  conservative  appreciation  of  the  past. 
As  the  West  grows  maturer,  it  is  slowly 
growing  into  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  one 
supreme  law  of  life  is  continuity;  that,  while 
looking  forward  for  additional  development, 
no  form  of  life,  no  institution,  no  religion, 
can  or  will  safely  lose  respect  for  its  origins. 
One  main  element  in  the  significance  of  his- 
tory is  the  conviction  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
social  organism,  that  is,  of  the  value  of  the 
past.  The  basis  of  the  power  of  the  six  non- 
theological  commandments  of  the  Biblical 
decalogue  is  a  recognition  of  the  importance 
of  a  right  attitude  toward  the  past.  It  is 
this  element  which  has  constituted  one  main 
source  of  strength  to  such  a  system  as  Con- 
fucianism. This  is  one  of  the  great  elements 
of  Hinduism.  In  thought  and  in  practice, 
ideal   Hinduism  has  had   reverence  for  the 


164  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

past.  This  has  brought  it  about  that,  in 
India,  the  fifth  commandment  of  respect  for 
elders  is  probably  better  obeyed  than  in 
America.  Also  the  tenth  commandment  is 
unquestionably  better  obeyed  by  the  Hindu 
than  by  the  Anglo-Saxon.  The  Hindu  is 
more  content  with  his  lot  than  the  Westerner, 
He  rarely  covets. 

I  have  tried  to  give  a  correct  and  fair  esti- 
mate of  some  of  the  elements  which  have 
given  the  higher  Hinduism  a  hold  on  from 
one-fifth  to  one-sixth  of  the  human  race  for 
thousands  of  years.  I  have  ascribed  the  in- 
spiration of  these  best  elements  to  God.  But 
there  are  also  many  elements  of  weakness  in 
even  the  higher,  as  well  as  in  popular,  Hin- 
duism. In  general,  the  weaknesses  of  Hin- 
duism are  the  one-sided  and  excessive  de- 
velopments of  its  strong  elements,  without  the 
balance  of  complementary  truths.  Thus  the 
first  element  of  strength  described  above, 
viz.:  acuteness  of  thought,  resulted  in  the 
fundamental  weakness  which  characterizes 
most  of  the  higher  Hinduism,  viz.:  that  of 
cold  intellectualism.  The  thought  of  higher 
Hinduism  has  not  been  an  appeal  to  life  in 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 65 

all  its  aspects,  but  an  appeal  to  logic.  It 
shows  the  hopelessness  of  attempts  at  spiritual 
flight  with  only  one  wing.  The  acute  thinkers 
who,  in  the  attempt  to  reach  a  consistent  ulti- 
mate unity  for  the  universe,  found  it  in  an 
impersonal  monism  never  satisfied  the  heart 
of  Hinduism.  Hinduism  has  never  secured 
a  satisfactory  conception  of  God.  By  its 
wisdom  Hinduism  knew  not  a  personal  God 
and  rested  in  an  ultimate  It,  to  whom  no 
man  can  pray,  whom  no  man  can  love,  and  in 
gratitude  to  whom  no  man  can  serve  brother 
men. 

By  what  it  considered  wisdom  the  higher 
Hinduism  also  knew  not  man,  but  counted 
him  and  all  his  experiences  unreal,  and  his 
highest  good  to  be  absorption  into  the  uni- 
versal It.  According  to  this  cold  intellectual- 
ism  all  religious  acts  and  institutions  are  only 
a  sham  and  a  selfish  courting  of  unreal 
divinities.  Everything  is  unreal,  is  a  mirage, 
is  mdyd.  Hinduism  has  never  had  a  satis- 
factory conception  of  man.  When  intelli- 
gent free  moral  agents  with  intellect,  heart, 
and  will,  by  an  intellectual  process  come 
to  affirm  and  to  believe  that  they  are  not 


1 66  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

persons,  but  are  unreal,  and  will  become  real 
only  when  they  lose  consciousness  and  are 
absorbed  into  an  unthinking,  universal  It, 
the  light  of  reason  in  them  becomes  darkness, 
and  how  great  is  that  darkness. 

The  second  element  of  strength,  viz.:  in- 
tensity of  search  after  the  Spirit,  has  been 
accompanied  by  an  unregulated  imagination. 
The  Hindu  can  believe  in  the  teeth  of  clear 
evidence,  because  the  ideals  of  his  imagina- 
tion seem  more  conclusive  than  the  evidences 
of  the  experience  of  life.  An  excess  of 
imagination,  like  an  excess  of  metaphysical 
consistency,  vitiates  sound  conclusions.  We 
see  among  some  modern  Christians  the  same 
kind  of  superstition  which  has  been  and 
still  is,  a  weakness  in  Hindus,  viz.:  unwill- 
ingness and  even  fear  of  a  careful  and  thor- 
ough historical  examination  of  the  origins 
of  their  faith,  and  hesitation  in  comparing 
these  origins  with  the  origins  of  other  re- 
ligions. The  bhakti  doctrine  of  salvation  by 
loving  devotion,  which  somewhat  approaches 
the  Christian  doctrine,  has  often  come  to 
mean  that  faith  by  itself  brings  salvation,  re- 
gardless of  the  one  on  whom  faith  is  placed. 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 67 

An  excessively  exuberant  imagination  has 
made  the  Hindu  satisfied  with  a  subjective 
conviction,  regardless  of  the  objective  legiti- 
macy or  satisfactoriness  of  the  ground  of  his 
faith  and  hope.  Nor  has  Hinduism  de- 
veloped a  clear  and  ethical  conception  that 
salvation  is  purely  a  matter  of  character. 

The  third  element  of  greatness  in  Hindu- 
ism, viz.:  an  all-embracing  and  effective  or- 
ganization, has  also  proved  a  source  of  most 
marked  w^eakness.  Humble,  unselfish,  spirit- 
ual leadership  is  necessary  and  effective.  But 
when  leaders  become  proud,  and  selfish,  and 
mechanical,  then  they  debase  themselves  and 
debase  their  followers.  They  are  blind  lead- 
ers of  the  blind.  Both  fall  into  the  ditch. 
This  has  come  to  be  the  condition  of  the 
Brahmans  and  of  the  Brahmanical  ascend- 
ency in  Hinduism. 

A  fourth  weakness  of  Hinduism  Is  its 
unethical  character  as  a  whole.  An  ultimate 
Reality,  which  is  impersonal,  must  be  un- 
ethical. Even  when  that  Reality  is  con- 
ceived to  have  some  personal  nature,  if  the 
way  of  knowledge  is  the  highest  way,  then 
the  chief  weakness  in  men  is  not  sin,  but 


1 68  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ignorance.  Neither  the  higher  nor  the  lower 
Hinduism  has  any  adequate  conception  of  sin. 

A  fifth  weakness  of  the  higher  Hinduism 
is  its  necessary  lack  of  altruism.  Where  the 
goal  is  knowledge  for  one's  self,  in  order 
that  the  self  may  attain  its  goal  of  absorption, 
there  is  no  stimulus  to  serve  others.  Those 
others  really  do  not  need  service.  They 
must  themselves  consume  the  fruit  of  their 
deeds  in  a  previous  existence.  No  aid  from 
other  men  can  interfere  with  that.  Nor 
is  there  any  motive  to  serve  society.  The 
world  being  unreal,  escape  from  it  and  from 
all  men  is  the  ideal  for  the  enlightened  man. 

A,  sixth  weakness  is  the  inaction,  the  un- 
progressiveness,  the  dull  contentment  with 
things  as  they  are,  which  result  from  the 
conception  of  the  world  as  unreal,  and  from 
the  Karma  doctrine  that  every  man  must  in- 
evitably be  what  he  is. 

Again,  at  this  stage  of  the  world  it  is  a 
fatal  weakness  that  any  institution  or  any 
idea  should  be  contracted  in  scope  and  ap- 
plicability. Hinduism  is,  and  can  be,  only 
a  national  religion.  No  one  can  be  a  Hindu 
except  one  who  is  born  such.     Intellectually 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 69 

he  may  accept  the  doctrines  of  Hinduism, 
but  he  can  never  become  a  true  Hindu.  Even 
in  the  past  every  national  religion,  which 
came  into  contact  with  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, unavoidably  passed  away.  The  fact 
that  it  was  a  national  religion  was  one  suffi- 
cient reason  why  it  faded  before  a  universal 
religion  like  the  Christian.  Where  to-day 
are  the  religions  of  Egypt,  Babylonia,  Greece, 
Rome,  and  Scandinavia?  The  same  reasons 
which  caused  their  decline  are  undermining 
Hinduism  to-day.  Of  these  reasons  one  is 
that,  by  its  essential  principle,  Hinduism  is 
contracted  and  selfish  and  unavailable  for 
those  outside  of  its  pale.  It  is  not,  and  can- 
not be,  a  missionary  faith.  Universal  ap- 
plicability is  essential  now  for  any  religion 
to  satisfy  thinking  men  anywhere. 

This  leads  to  the  last  mention  of  weakness 
in  Hinduism,  which  will  be  dealt  with  in  this 
connection.  It  is  an  absolutely  fatal  defect 
which  dooms  the  system.  Hinduism  cannot 
cope  with  the  modern  spirit,  i.e.  it  cannot 
meet  the  disintegrating  influences  of  modern 
thought  and  life.  India  is  being  unavoid- 
ably modernized.     This  is  manifesting  itself 


lyo  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

in  two  marked  tendencies.  The  first  tendency 
is  a  new  national  spirit  which  expresses  a 
new  valuation  of,  and  a  new  passion  for, 
everything  Indian.  This  new  national  spirit 
is  active  in  political,  social,  and  commercial 
matters,  and  naturally  is  active  in  religion 
also.  There  is  a  new  pride  in  India's  past, 
and  a  fresh  confidence  in  her  present  and 
future.  This  national  spirit  leads  many  In- 
dians to  a  new  study  of  Hindu  thought  and 
philosophy,  and  to  a  Neo-Hinduism,  which 
seeks  to  cast  out  the  worst  elements  of  popu- 
lar Hinduism  and  to  invigorate  the  best 
elements  of  the  higher  Hinduism. 

But  the  leaven  which  is  causing  this  fer- 
ment is  India's  contact  with  the  West.  Con- 
tact with  the  West  means  coming  under  the 
controlling  element  of  modern  life,  the  scien- 
tific spirit,  which  tests  everything  by  its 
qualities  of  reality  and  of  usefulness.  It  is 
contact  with  the  West  which  is  awakening 
the  national  spirit  in  political  matters,  in  edu- 
cation, in  social  changes,  in  commercialism. 
That  same  leaven  is  the  fermenting,  assimilat- 
ing power  in  the  new  interest  in  the  Hindu 
religion  and  the  confidence  that,  when  puri- 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     171 

fied,  the  Neo-Hindu  faith  will  be  sufficient 
for  India.  But  the  scientific  spirit  is  utterly 
contradictory  to  the  fundamental  basis  of 
Hinduism,  which  is  that  of  the  absolute 
authority  of  the  standards  of  the  past. 

The  contact  of  India  with  the  modern 
spirit  shows  itself  in  two  ways.  First,  be- 
cause many  doctrines  and  practices  of  Hin- 
duism are  seen  not  to  be  useful  now,  these 
worst  elements  are  being  discarded  by  the 
scientific  spirit.  Secondly,  the  scientific  spirit 
is  also  radically  undermining  entire  Hindu- 
ism by  destroying  confidence  in  the  absolute 
authority  of  the  past,  for  even  its  better  ele- 
ments. Whatever  religion  is  to  abide  in 
India  must  be  one  which  commends  itself 
by  its  reality  and  by  its  usefulness  to  all 
classes  of  men  in  India  and  in  the  world. 
But,  by  cutting  way  the  validity  and  suffi- 
ciency of  any  religious  books  and  of  any  body 
of  authorized  interpreters,  the  scientific  spirit 
which  is  now  leavening  India  is  eliminating 
Hinduism  from  remaining  a  religion  which 
will  continue  to  satisfy  the  thinking  and 
spiritual  men  of  that  country.  For  Hindu- 
ism, as  a  system,  the  authority  of  the  past 


172  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

has  been  the  foundation.  Neo-Hinduism  of 
every  shade  practically  discards  this  old 
foundation  and  appeals  to  modern  Indians 
on  the  basis  that  what  it  would  retain 
commends  itself  to  the  reason  and  religious 
nature  of  Indians.  The  more  conservative 
schools  of  modern  Hinduism  do  not  discard 
the  principle  of  excessive  accommodation, 
which  has  always  been  characteristic  of  Hin- 
duism. They  may  give  up  some  portion  of 
the  worst  superstitions,  but  when  they  do  so, 
they  apologize  for  the  unethical  and  un- 
spiritual  concessions  which  they  make  to  the 
masses.  But  apologies  are  always  confes- 
sions. These  very  Neo-Hindus  give  the 
clearest  testimony  to  the  working  of  the 
modern  scientific  spirit  by  the  apologies 
which  they  make  for  polytheism,  idolatry, 
sacrifice,  superstitious  rites,  and  caste  as  un- 
avoidable concessions  to  the  masses. 

The  modern  spirit  discredits  and  under- 
mines Hinduism  in  another  of  its  funda- 
mental positions.  According  to  Hinduism, 
the  world  is  unreal.  On  this  assumption, 
Hinduism  correctly  teaches  that  the  role  for 
the  wise  and  holy  man  is  to  escape  from  the 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 73 

world  and  engage  in  asceticism  and  medita- 
tion. But  under  the  influence  of  the  modern 
spirit  the  Indian  heartily  believes  in  the 
decided  reality  of  the  world,  and  more  and 
more  his  thought  and  his  action  are  all  based 
on  this  conviction.  This  being  so,  instead  of 
abjuring  the  world  and  devoting  themselves 
to  asceticism  or  meditation,  most  Indians  are 
devoting  themselves  to  the  highest  activity 
in  the  world,  and  the  best  men  are  devoting 
themselves  to  the  betterment  of  society  in 
business,  politics,  education,  social  improve- 
ment, and  in  religious  enlightenment.  But, 
whether  they  know  it  or  not,  by  so  doing 
these  Indians  are  drifting  away  from  the 
bases  of  Hinduism. 

The  doctrine  of  Karma  is  the  most  funda- 
mental of  Hindu  doctrines.  Its  practical 
weakness  is  shown  by  its  dissipation  through 
contact  with  the  modern  spirit.  The  doctrine 
of  Karma  is,  that  every  man's  condition  in 
the  world  is  unalterably  determined  by  his 
conduct  in  a  previous  stage  of  existence. 
Neither  he  nor  any  one  else  can  alter  his 
fate.  Everything  in  the  phenomenal  world 
is  the  unchangeable  result  of  previous  Karma. 


174  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Karma  settled  it  that  the  depressed  classes 
are  re-embodied  souls  which  in  previous 
stages  of  existence  had  done  some  evil  on 
account  of  which  they  had  re-birth  in  their 
present  depressed  condition,  and  in  it  they 
must  irrevocably  remain.  But  the  logic  of 
life  is  daily  showing  this  assumption  to  be 
untrue.  For,  through  the  service  of  Christian 
missionaries,  multitudes  of  those  depressed 
classes  are  being  marvellously  raised.  Also 
social  reformers,  political  leaders,  and  earnest 
theists  see  that  it  is  an  economic,  political, 
and  religious  wrong,  both  to  the  depressed 
classes  and  to  the  whole  community,  to  let 
such  a  condition  continue.  So  these  Hindu 
leaders  are  making  worthy  efforts  to  elevate 
their  depressed  countrymen.  Yet  thereby 
they  show  their  practical  disbelief  in  two 
fundamentals  of  Hinduism,  the  religious  doc- 
trine of  Karma  and  the  social  basis  of  caste. 
Before  the  vitalizing,  energizing  modern 
spirit,  the  Hindu  theory  of  the  world,  the 
Karma  doctrine,  and  the  tyranny  of  caste  are 
being  disregarded,  and  will  eventually  be 
discarded  entirely. 

The   inadequacy   of   Hindu   doctrine   and 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 75 

Hindu  caste  is  also  illustrated  by  changes  of 
sentiment  and  experience  toward  the  highest 
castes.  Once  the  anger  and  curse  of  a  Brah- 
man were  deemed  far  more  terrible  than 
the  anger  of  the  gods  or  other  punish- 
ment for  sin.  In  India's  dramatic  literature, 
like  the  drama  of  Shakuntala,  tragedy  largely 
turned  on  the  inevitable  injury  of  a  Brah- 
man's imprecation.  To-day,  in  many  rela- 
tions, the  Brahman  not  only  has  no  advan- 
tage, but  is  coming  to  be  handicapped,  and 
sometimes  even  despised.  In  the  main,  his 
respect  depends  more  and  more  on  his  worth 
than  on  his  birth.  As  an  illustration,  take 
an  article  from  an  influential  Indian  paper. 
The  Mysore  and  South  Indian  Review,  en- 
titled: "The  Brahmans;  Should  They  Ex- 
ist? "  The  first  sentence  of  that  article  is 
this:  "It  is  well  known  that  the  Brahmans 
are  as  much  despised  now  as  they  were  once 
held  in  high  esteem."  Other  sentences  in  that 
article  are  these:  The  true  Brahman  "is 
one  who  is  such,  not  only  by  birth,  but  by 
character  and  conduct,  as  well  as  in  knowl- 
edge." "  Not  one  in  a  thousand  can  at  the 
present  moment  have  a  rightful  and  honest 


176  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

claim  to  that  revered  and  high  appellation." 
"  The  Brahmanism  of  the  present  day  is,  in 
fact,  no  Brahmanism  at  all.  ...  it  is  a  thing 
of  the  past."  "  The  self-sacrifice  of  the 
Brahman  of  the  good  old  days  to  get  knowl- 
edge for  its  own  sake  is  now  entirely  un- 
known." "The  Brahman  has  prostituted 
knowledge  for  earning  a  living,  and  thus  has 
debased  it  and  at  the  same  time  lowered 
himself." 

In  short,  the  modern  spirit  is  certainly 
and  relentlessly  undermining  and  disinte- 
grating the  assumptions  and  institutions  of 
Hinduism  by  requiring  every  tradition,  every 
custom,  every  doctrine,  to  approve  itself  as 
rational  and  useful.  Formerly  the  sufficient 
condemnation  of  changes  proposed  by  Chris- 
tian missionaries  or  by  the  modern  spirit  was 
simply  to  say  that  the  changes  were  contrary 
to,  and  subversive  of,  traditional  authority. 
On  that  assumption  it  was  unnecessary  to  show 
that  many  Hindu  ideas  and  customs  were 
injurious.  Such  evidence  was  irrelevant  and 
inadmissible.  The  sanction  of  ancient  reli- 
gious books  and  of  their  interpretation  by  the 
Brahmans    required  unalterable  compliance 


HINDUISM'S  GREATNESS  AND  WEAKNESS     1 77 

with  old  ideas  and  customs.  Till  recently  so 
patent  an  advantage  as  visits  by  Indians  to 
foreign  countries  for  education  and  observa- 
tion were  prohibited  by  the  Hindu  religion. 
Child-marriages  and  the  prohibition  of  the 
remarriage  of  even  child  widows  were  de- 
fended on  the  sufficient  sanction  of  the  shas- 
tras  and  custom.  Those  days  are  rapidly 
passing.  Both  the  condemnation  and  defence 
of  religious  or  social  ideas  and  practices  now 
come  from  the  appeal  to  reason. 

It  is  needless  to  give  additional  illustrations 
of  the  weakness  of  Hinduism.  It  is  enough 
that  it  cannot  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
modern  spirit.  Hinduism  is  doomed.  Yet 
it  has  some  worthy  elements.  God's  way  of 
dealing  with  men  and  with  institutions  and 
religions  is  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  As 
unworthy  elements  in  men,  or  in  institutions, 
or  religions  pass  away,  if  their  best  elements 
are  fulfilled  by  a  new  environment,  by  com- 
plementary enlargements,  by  a  new  dynamic, 
then  they  pass  into  that  which  God  intends. 
Thus  we  co-operate  with  God  in  His  divine 
constructive  way.  The  next  lecture  will  be 
an  attempt  to  show  how,  in  the  providence 


178  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

of  God,  Christ  is  the  new  dynamic;  how  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  is  to  furnish  the  new  en- 
vironment; how  God  has  prepared  India  for 
the  Christ  and  Christ  for  India's  develop- 
ment and  highest  usefulness  to  the  world. 
In  the  past  every  gain  in  every  department 
of  life  has  been  found  to  be  simply  a  dis- 
covery by  men  of  some  wondrous  thought 
and  activity  of  God  which  had  awaited 
recognition  and  utilization.  To-day  in  every 
other  department  of  life  the  lure  to  effort  is 
the  conviction  that  still  more  marvellous 
revelations  of  God's  work  await  the  reverent, 
patient  investigator.  Not  less  in  Missions 
does  a  similar  inspiring  hope  encourage  to 
mightier  effort  the  Christian  man  of  insight. 
Therefore,  enlarging  the  scope  of  Carey's 
great  words  to  include  the  past  as  well  as  the 
future,  the  modern  missionary  should  say: 
"  Now  seeing  as  never  before  God's  great 
preparation  in  the  past  for  India's  becoming 
a  reverent,  obedient,  loving  disciple  of  the 
Christ,  expect  great  things  from  God,  at- 
tempt great  things  for  God." 


V 


INDIA'S    PREPARATION    FOR   THE   CHRIST,   AND 

CHRIST'S  POWER  TO  MEET  THAT 

PREPARATION 

SO  far  as  the  preceding  four  lectures  may 
have  carried  conviction,  they  have  left 
the  following  distinct  impressions:  God 
has  ever  been  at  work  in  India;  the  Hindu 
has  patiently  sought  after  God;  this  long 
search  has  constantly  met  arrest  and  de- 
generacy; the  moment  that  India  came  into 
contact  with  the  Christ  a  marvellous  change 
began  in  her  thought  and  life;  the  higher 
Hinduism  is  passing  away;  therefore  some- 
thing must  take  its  place.  The  present  lec- 
ture is  an  attempt  to  show  that  the  Christ 
can,  and  will,  fulfil  the  best  elements  of 
Hinduism. 

To  any  one  who  profoundly  believes  in 
God,  India's  marvellous,  pathetic  past  is  full 
of  meaning  and  hope  for  the  future.     No 

179 


l8o  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

handful  of  soil  which  is  washed  down  from 
the  eternal  mountains,  but  helps  to  fertilize 
the  plains  where  men  congregate  and  toil. 
In  the  attrition  of  the  modern  spirit  with 
both  the  lower  and  higher  Hinduism,  as 
the  forms  of  the  Indian  religion  are  grad- 
ually rubbed  and  swept  away,  the  better  ele- 
ments of  both  will  enrich  India's  religious 
thought  and  life,  and  while  doing  this,  under 
the  germinating  influence  of  the  divine  Spirit, 
will  give  a  spiritual  harvest  for  the  life  of 
the  world.  God  has  ever  had  His  long  look 
forward.  The  more  patiently  that  He  has 
waited,  the  more  earnestly  that  for  millen- 
niums India  has  groped  after  God,  the  more 
certain  the  assurance  that  the  fruitage  of 
this  divine  patience  will  be  large. 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  His  won- 
ders to  perform." 

"  Judge  not  the  Lord  by  feeble  sense,  but 
trust  Him  for  His  grace." 

"  God  is  His  own  interpreter,  and  He 
will  make  it  plain." 

The  more  that  one  realizes  that  God  has 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     l8l 

been  working  for  India,  the  more  strong  will 
be  his  conviction  that  the  results  of  God's 
long,  patient  effort  will  be  worthy  of  Him- 
self. On  such  conviction  every  Christian 
child  of  the  universal  Father  will  be  the 
more  inspired  to  be  a  co-worker  with  God, 
on  the  Pauline  principle:  Work  your  best, 
because  it  is  God  that  worketh  for  and 
through  you.  Using  Christ's  significant 
parable:  He  and  His  Spirit  are  a  leaven 
which  will  leaven  human  thought  and  life 
till  it  is  all  leavened.  The  flour,  the  mate- 
rials, of  the  parable  are  the  thoughts  and  prac- 
tices of  any  people.  Christ  and  His  Spirit 
are  a  leaven,  a  dynamic,  which  will  influence 
the  thought  and  life  of  the  peoples  with 
whom  He  comes  into  contact,  and  which  He 
will  gradually  more  and  more  influence,  till 
they  eventually  all  become  Christlike.  In 
this  way  the  old  ideas  will  have  fuller  and 
better  significance  and  power,  and  will  pro- 
vide more  nourishing  bread  for  the  souls  of 
men. 

It  is  unquestionably  safe  to  say  that,  as 
yet,  the  thoughts  and  customs  of  not  one  man, 
not  one   community,   not   one   church,   have 


1 82  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

been  wholly  leavened  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ. 
The  leavening  process  has  been  only  partially 
effected.  In  some  individuals  and  some 
churches,  more  leavening  has  been  accom- 
plished than  in  others.  Or,  changing  the 
figure  and  using  another  significant  parable, 
in  some  of  the  better  fields  of  the  human 
heart  or  community,  the  good  seed  of  Christ 
and  His  divine  spirit  may  be  yielding  fruit, 
twenty-fold,  thirty-fold,  or  possibly  sixty-fold, 
—how  much  only  He  who  seeth  in  secret  truly 
knows, — but  in  not  one  is  there  already  a 
hundred-fold  fruitage.  Also  in  some  places 
the  tares  are  choking  the  good  seed  more, 
and  in  others  less.  Nevertheless  the  good 
seed  is  growing;  the  tares  are  being  more  or 
less  uprooted. 

Also,  before  considering  in  detail  the 
meaning  of  India's  past  for  her  future,  it  is 
desirable  briefly  to  recall  from  the  history 
of  some  other  religions  how  the  contact  of 
the  Christ  with  the  thought  and  life  of  other 
countries  prepared  those  peoples  for  the 
Christ  and  how  He  utilized  their  best  heri- 
tage. Until  to-day  every  religion  that  has 
come  into  contact  with  the  Christ  has  sooner 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     183 

or  later  passed  away,  but  from  its  own  best 
thought  and  life  it  has  always  left  an  en- 
riching element  in  the  religious  life  which 
succeeded  it.  Is  there  not  every  reason  to 
anticipate  that  there  will  be  the  same  result 
in  India's  contact  with  the  Christ?  Those 
religions  which  passed  away  accomplished 
something  worthy.  They  were  in  all  cases 
a  preparation  for  the  Christ,  who  fulfilled 
every  one  of  their  elements.  Not  one  jot 
or  tittle  of  their  law  passed  away  without 
being  fulfilled.  It  will  be  the  same  with 
Hinduism. 

That  which  is  called  Christianity  to-day 
practically  consists  of  the  thoughts  and  prac- 
tices of  the  peoples  to  whom  the  church  went, 
mixed  with  the  ideas  and  modified  by  the 
inspiration  which  the  church  brought  to 
those  peoples.  It  is  an  axiom  that  the  He- 
brew religion  made  large  contribution  to 
what  is  called  the  Christian  religion.  This 
is  the  meaning  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
This  was  the  assumption  and  teaching  of  Paul. 
The  Jewish  religion  was  a  scaffolding  which 
was  necessary  and  useful  for  the  erection  of 
the  larger  spiritual  thought  and  life  which 


184  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Christ  introduced.  But  when  the  Christ  was 
fully  manifest,  the  Jewish  preparation  for 
Him  had  accomplished  its  work,  and  the 
scaffolding  was  ready  to  be  taken  down. 
The  Hebrew  religion  contributed  to  the 
spiritual  thought  and  life  of  the  world  its 
best  element,  viz.:  conviction  that  God  is  a 
living  and  a  righteous  God.  But,  because 
at  the  time  of  the  Christ  the  Hebrew  leaders 
claimed  that  God  was  such  a  God  mainly 
for  His  chosen  people  for  their  sakes,  and 
not  for  the  whole  family  of  man,  Judaism 
remained  a  contracted  and  national  religion, 
which  has  never  been  thoroughly  leavened 
by  the  universal  Christ.  The  Greek  contrib- 
uted to  the  world  an  appreciation  of  beauty, 
but  without  the  complementary  truth  of  a 
strong  ethical  quality.  So  Greek  civiliza- 
tion largely  turned  to  voluptuousness,  and 
therefore  had  to  pass  away.  But  both  the 
Greek  conception  of  beauty  and  the  Greek 
philosophy  have  always  been  considered 
preparations  for  Christian  thought  and  insti- 
tutions, and  have  made  them  fuller.  The 
Roman's  chief  contribution  to  the  world  has 
been  a  sense  of  law,  order,  and  organization. 


INDIA'S  PREPAR.\TION ;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 85 

But,  because  the  Roman  had  no  adequate 
sense  of  responsibility  for  service,  his  thought 
and  institutions  hardened  into  tyranny,  and 
therefore  had  to  pass  away.  However,  that 
Roman  conception  was  a  preparation  for  the 
Christ,  who  took  and  measurably  fulfilled  it, 
though  again  in  so-called  Christianity  that 
organizing  element  has  often  tended  to  be 
tyrannical.  To  the  thought  and  life  of  the 
Western  world  the  Teutons  contributed  a 
sense  of  the  worth  of  the  individual,  but 
without  an  adequate  conception  of  responsi- 
bility for  society,  and  therefore,  it  led  to  an 
unduly  loose  organization  of  the  family.  But 
Christian  thought  took  up  the  Teuton  con- 
tribution and  has  made  most  helpful  use  of  it. 
Without  giving  additional  illustrations,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  for  nineteen  centuries  the 
religion  of  the  Christ  has  largely,  and  mainly, 
been  an  adapting  and  adopting  power,  a 
leaven  leavening  human  thought  and  life  with 
the  Christian  spirit.  In  general,  the  principle 
of  evolution  has  ever  been  at  work.  Through 
the  best  elements  in  the  thought  and  life  of 
all  peoples  there  has  been  a  preparation 
everywhere  for  the  Christ.    Under  the  influ- 


1 86  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  when  the  dynamic  of 
the  Christ  had  leavened  the  thought  and  in- 
stitutions of  any  nation,  the  old  religion 
gradually  passed  away,  but  not  without  hav- 
ing done  something  for  the  world.  What 
God  has  done  for  and  through  every  other 
people,  He  has  undoubtedly  been  doing  for 
the  Hindu.  As  He  brings  India  into  con- 
tact with  the  Christ,  the  Christ  will  enter  into 
the  preparation  of  the  past  and  will  fulfil 
all  of  India's  best  thought  and  life  till 
every  jot  and  tittle  is  utilized,  and  through 
the  Christianized  thought  and  life  of  India 
God  will  enrich  the  world. 

This  preliminary  statement  has  made  it 
plain  why  I  do  not  say  that  God  has  pre- 
pared India  to  accept  Christianity.  Chris- 
tianity ought  to  mean  only  the  teaching  and 
the  power  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  But 
the  words  Christ  and  Christianity  are  not 
commensurate  nor  interchangeable.  Every 
thoughtful,  sensitive,  occidental  Christian 
knows  that  his  own  thought  and  life  and 
institutions  and  local  church  are  not  com- 
pletely Christlike,  and  of  course  that  so-called 
Christianity  and  churches  and  peoples  of  the 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 87 

West  are  only  partially  Christian.  There- 
fore, it  is  proper,  prudent,  and  reverent  to 
the  Lord  of  our  lives  not  commonly  to  use 
the  word  Christianity  in  connections  which 
will  cause  non-Christians  to  assume  that  we 
suppose  Christ  and  Christianity  to  be  entirely 
interchangeable  terms. 

If  a  sense  of  the  inadequacy  of  any  section 
of  the  Christian  Church's  being  an  incarna- 
tion of  the  Christ  is  clear  to  occidentals  who 
bear  the  Christian  name,  it  is  more  clear  to 
the  oriental  who  has  frequent  and  disillu- 
sionizing experience  of  contact  with  unchris- 
tian men  and  proposals  which  take  the  Chris- 
tian name.  This  cannot  be  helped.  God  is 
most  long-suffering  toward  all  who  take  the 
Christian  name,  as  toward  all  who  do  not. 
To  the  occidental  the  word  Christianity  prac- 
tically means  his  own  interpretation  of  reli- 
gious thought  and  life.  To  the  oriental  still 
more  does  the  word  Christianity  mean  the 
Western  interpretation  of  religion  expressed 
in  thought,  life,  and  institution.  Partly 
with  good  reason  and  perhaps  partly  without 
adequate  reason,  such  interpretation  does  not 
wholly  appeal  to  him.    But  no  Christian  sees 


1 88  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

any  deficiency  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
every  Christian  man  and  every  Christian 
Church  w^ishes  all  men  to  accept  and  to 
follow  the  Christ.  So  the  wise  way  is 
humbly  to  recognize  our  limitations,  and  to 
say  to  orientals  and  to  non-Christians  every- 
where: ''Follow  the  Christ,  not  me."  Or, 
we  may  say  with  Paul:  "  Follow  me  so  far 
as  I  follow  the  Christ."  Therefore,  loyalty 
to  Christ  will  lead  us  to  speak  of  how  God 
has  been  preparing  India  for  the  Christ,  and 
how  Christ  is  fitted  to  meet  that  preparation. 
We  all  desire  to  make  the  Christ  Himself 
supreme.  He  said:  "I,  if  I  be  lifted  up, 
will  draw  all  men  unto  Me,"  not  to  Chris- 
tianity, not  to  any  particular  interpretation 
of  Myself. 

Not  only  so,  but  we  should  humbly  and 
gladly  live  under  the  encouraging  assurance 
of  the  evolutionary  working  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  expressed  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  thus:  "  God  having  provided 
some  better  things  concerning  us,  that  apart 
from  us  they  [i.e.  even  the  prophets  and 
saints  of  an  earlier  dispensation]  should  not 
be   made   perfect."     On    that   principle    the 


INDIA'S  preparation;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 89 

Christians  of  to-day  should  entertain  the  in- 
spiring, though  humbling,  conviction  that  till 
all  the  races  of  the  world  pay  allegiance  to 
the  Christ  and  make  their  interpretation  of 
Him,  the  most  favoured  of  previous  Chris- 
tian communities  shall  not  be  perfect.  For 
our  present  thought  that  implies  that  when 
such  peoples  as  the  Hindus  accept  and  in- 
terpret the  Christ,  they  will  make  valuable 
contributions  to  the  thought  and  life  of  God's 
children  everywhere. 

As  another  preliminary  consideration  bear- 
ing on  this  topic,  we  might  well  bear  in 
mind  the  apostle  Paul's  word:  "A  veil  lieth  j 
upon  their  heart.  But  whensoever  a  man  shall 
turn  unto  the  Lord,  the  veil  shall  be  taken 
away."  Paul  did  not  think  of  some  religions 
as  false  and  of  one  as  true.  He  thought 
of  God  as  trying  to  enlighten  all  men,  and 
of  all  men  as  straining  to  see  God,  but  of 
most  men  as  having  a  veil  over  their  spiritual 
vision  which  prevents  them  from  adequately 
seeing  God.  But  when  men  shall  see  God  as 
the  Man  Christ  Jesus  reveals  Him,  then  the 
veil  will  be  taken  away;  and,  if  men  steadily 
and    sincerely   behold    the    glorious    revela- 


190  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

tion  of  God  which  is  made  by  Christ,  then 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  they  will  gradually 
be  more  and  more  changed  into  likeness  to 
Him.  Now  it  is  an  interesting  coincidence 
that  to  the  Hindu  all  nature  and  all  the 
experiences  of  life  seem  a  veil.  He  sadly 
recognizes  that  his  view  of  God  is  hindered, 
not  helped,  by  what  we  consider  God's 
work  in  nature,  in  man,  and  in  history.  To 
the  Hindu  this  is  all  veil,  which  by  prolonged 
meditation  he  seeks  to  pierce  and  to  push 
away.  To  him  everything  in  the  phenome- 
nal world  is  unreal,  something  which  hinders 
his  getting  close  to  and  united  with  the  Real 
and  Divine.  The  Christian  believes  that 
that  veil  which  seems  to  the  Hindu  to  ob- 
scure his  vision  of  God  will  be  removed 
whensoever  the  Hindu  shall  steadily  gaze 
into  the  face  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
perfect  Man,  and  in  that  clear  mirror  the 
Hindu  will,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  secure  the 
liberty  which  will  free  him  from  the  bond- 
age of  the  past  and  of  caste;  and  then,  be- 
holding the  glory  of  the  Lord,  he  shall  by 
that  Spirit  be  more  and  more  transformed 
into  the  image  of  the  Christ  Himself.     Not 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     19I 

only  Paul's,  but  also  Christ's  thought  is  that 
He  did  not  come  to  destroy  previous  reli- 
gions or  to  found  the  Christian  religion.  We 
may  be  thankful  that  Christ  did  not  speak 
of  a  religion  or  of  religions,  but  of  coming 
to  enlarge  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  family 
of  the  heavenly  Father,  to  help  men  to  live 
aright,  to  have  life  and  that  abundantly. 

With  such  preliminary  considerations  let 
us  now  turn  to  consider  how  God  has  been 
preparing  India  for  the  Christ  and  how  the 
Christ  is  fitted  to  meet  and  to  fulfil  that 
preparation.  But  first  I  recall  the  last  point 
of  the  previous  lecture,  viz.:  that  Hinduism 
as  a  religion  is  breaking  down  because  it  can- 
not meet  the  tests  and  requirements  of  mod- 
ern life.  That  seems  to  me  incontrovertible. 
Something  must  take  the  place  of  the  old 
religion,  for  the  Indians  are  the  most  reli- 
gious people  in  the  world.  To  lose  their 
old  religion  and  not  to  have  a  better  one 
take  its  place  would  be  the  experience  of 
having  one  evil  spirit  cast  out  and  to  have 
seven  worse  evil  spirits  come  in.  God  for- 
bid that  such  a  disaster  should  ever  come  to 
beloved  India! 


192  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Yet  there  is  a  danger.  In  December,  1882, 
when  a  Decennial  Conference  of  Indian 
missionaries  was  held  in  Calcutta,  on  the 
evening  preceding  the  Conference,  at  the 
solicitation  of  several  missionaries,  Keshab 
Chandar  Sen,  the  leader  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced section  of  the  Brahma  Samaj,  made 
an  address  especially  intended  for  mission- 
aries. He  began  his  address  by  saying  for 
substance:  "Fathers  and  Brethren,  I  should 
never  have  ventured  to  take  upon  myself  to 
speak  to  a  company  like  you  unless  some  of 
your  own  members  had  pressed  it  on  me  that 
some  thoughts  might  be  suggestive  and  help- 
ful from  one  who  is  not  of  your  number, 
but  who  reveres  your  Lord  and  Master  Jesus 
Christ,  and  who  is  grateful  for  your  services 
to  my  country."  The  burden  of  his  address 
was  an  appeal  something  like  this:  "While 
the  contact  of  the  West  with  India  has  done 
and  is  doing,  my  country  great  good,  yet 
it  is  also  doing  one  serious  injury.  Of  old 
India's  ideals  were  spiritual.  Our  ancestors 
did  not  aspire  after  wealth,  or  honour,  or 
power,  but  after  knowledge  of  the  Spirit. 
However,  contact  with  the  practical  West  is 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 93 

changing  the  ideals  and  aspirations  of  young 
India.  Our  young  men  are  becoming  eager 
to  amass  fortunes,  to  secure  honours,  to  be- 
come powerful  in  politics  and  society.  India 
is  in  danger  of  becoming  materialized.  Now 
who  is  to  withstand  and  correct  this  evil 
tendency  which  is  coming  to  this  country 
from  yours,  if  not  you,  disciples  of  the 
Christ,  men  of  the  Spirit?  I  appeal  to  you  to 
consider  whether,  in  view  of  this  growing  dan- 
ger, you  cannot  see  your  way  more  and  more  to 
concentrate  your  attention  and  your  efforts  on 
developing  spiritual  life  among  our  young 
men.  Can  you  not  leave  to  educated  Indians 
the  teaching  of  secular  subjects  in  schools 
and  colleges,  and  yourselves  expend  your 
strength  on  spiritual  subjects  in  order  to  de- 
velop spiritual  life?" 

Unquestionably  contact  with  modern  life 
is  surely  undermining  Hinduism.  Some- 
thing must  take  its  place.  The  Christian 
believes  and  must  act  as  if  he  believed  that 
the  Christ  can  save  India  from  growing 
materialism.  If  so,  He  must  and  will  do 
it  by  fulfilling  the  best  elements  of  India's 
thought  and  life  by  His  own  revelation  and 


194  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

dynamic.  India  will  be  Christianized  only 
as  Christian  thought  and  life  are  naturalized 
in  it. 

Even  the  higher  Hinduism  cannot  meet 
the  tests  of  the  modern  spirit,  first,  because 
Hinduism  assumes  the  unreality  of  the  world, 
whereas  modern  life  says  that  reality  is  no- 
where if  it  is  not  always  near  and  in  and 
all  about  us,  that  in  the  highest  degree  the 
real  is  personal,  not  impersonal,  and  there- 
fore is  ethical  and  spiritual;  secondly,  be- 
cause Hinduism  assumes  that  the  attain- 
ment of  reality  is  by  escaping  from  the 
world  into  practical  non-existence,  whereas 
modern  life  says:  "For  your  own  sake  and 
for  the  world's  sake  stay  in  the  world  and 
do  your  very  best  to  make  the  world  bet- 
ter;" "'tis  life,  not  death,  for  which  we 
pant,  more  life  and  fuller  that  we  want;" 
thirdly,  the  modern  spirit  requires  that  no 
thought,  or  institution,  or  influence  be  con- 
tracted or  mechanical  or  even  national;  that 
the  golden  age  of  nothing  shall  be  deemed 
to  be  in  the  past;  that  what  the  human 
spirit  needs  must  be  universal,  progressive, 
spiritual,   genuinely   human.     Also,    though 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 95 

the  Neo-Hindu  may  not  know  or  think  it, 
the  modern  spirit  requires  that  the  obliga- 
tion of  the  highest  is  best  to  serve  the  lowest, 
that  only  by  such  an  attitude  and  service  can 
the  highest  remain  high  and  rise  still  higher. 
The  higher  Hinduism  cannot  meet  any  of 
these  tests,  and  therefore  must  pass  away.  Yet 
the  man  of  insight  distinctly  sees  in  this  very 
crisis  and  in  India's  past  history  which  has 
led  up  to  this  crisis  God's  preparation  of 
India  for  the  Christ,  and  Christ's  fitness  to 
fulfil  India's  highest,  deepest  need. 

Now  what  are  some  of  India's  preparations 
for  the  Christ?  First,  India's  long  and  patient 
thinking  has  been  preparing  her  for  a  more 
balanced,  a  more  personal  apprehension  of 
unity  in  the  universe.  In  no  country  more  than 
in  India  has  there  been  patient  effort  to  find  a 
basis  for  unity.  The  impersonal  monism  of  the 
thinkers,  though  severely  logical,  has  not  been 
satisfactory,  because  it  did  not  meet  all  the 
needs  of  the  whole  nature  of  man.  By 
Indian  thinkers  religion  was  sacrificed  to, 
and  made  identical  with,  philosophy.  No 
wonder  that  this  has  proved  insufficient. 
India   needs   a   thinking  which   satisfies   the 


196  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

intellect,  and  yet  which  also  satisfies  the  heart 
and  conscience. 

When  by  her  wisdom  India  sought  to 
know  God,  yet  knew  not  God,  she  was  being 
prepared  at  the  fulness  of  time,  through  the 
Christ,  who  is  the  wisdom  and  the  power 
of  God,  to  know  the  one  and  only  true 
and  personal  God  whom  to  know  is  life 
eternal.  The  Christ  gives  such  a  satis- 
fying revelation  of  unity  in  the  universe  as 
fulfils  India's  longing,  and  such  as  India 
can  well  interpret  to  the  world.  India's 
craving  for  a  consistent  explanation  of  unity 
has  not  been  satisfied  by  the  hypothesis  of 
impersonal  monism,  but  it  is  a  preparation 
for  the  Christ's  revelation  that  the  unity  of 
the  universe  of  sentient  beings  is  a  personal 
monism.  Christ  did  not  teach  this  as  a  phi- 
losophy but  as  life,  because  that  is  the  way  in 
which  the  world  needs  truth.  The  way  in 
which  He  expressed  the  truth  of  a  personal 
monism  was  this:  "I  and  the  Father  are 
one."  "That  they  may  all  be  one;  even  as 
Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee, 
that  they  may  also  be  one  in  Us."  ..."  That 
they  may  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one;  I  in 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 97 

them,  and  Thou  in  Me,  that  they  may  be 
perfected  into  one."  This  unity  of  personal 
monism  is  the  vital  principle  in  the  most 
suggestive  and  mystical  of  Christ's  parables, 
such  as  that  of  the  vine  and  branches,  and 
that  of  the  body  and  its  members. 

We  may  be  thanivful  that  Christ  did  not 
put  this  teaching  in  philosophical  form,  be- 
cause until  recently  the  Christian  world  in 
the  West  was  not  prepared  to  receive  such 
truth.  But  contact  with  India  has  strength- 
ened the  growing  demand  of  thoughtful 
Christian  men  in  the  West  to  see  the  necessity 
for  and  the  helpfulness  of  personal  monism 
as  the  satisfactory  interpretation  of  the  unity 
of  the  universe.  According  to  this  thought, 
man  is  a  real  personal  being,  but  not  sep- 
arate from  God  as  an  entirely  independent 
existence.  He  is  such  a  projection  of  God 
as  a  son  is  a  projection  of  his  parents;  and 
because  God  is  a  person,  the  human  projec- 
tion of  God  must  partake  of  His  personal 
characteristics.  Men  have  intelligence,  heart, 
and  will,  as  God  has.  The  personal  quali- 
ties of  the  source  must  be  in  those  who  come 
out  from,  and  yet  are  inseparably  connected 


198  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

with,  that  source.  And  in  the  vast,  myste- 
rious realm  of  the  subliminal  or  subcon- 
scious, which  philosophy  and  psychology  are 
beginning  to  discover,  and  the  fringes  of 
which  they  are  beginning  to  explore,  we  see 
suggestions  of  how  a  personal  monism  can 
more  satisfactorily  than  any  other  hypothesis 
meet  the  intellectual  demand  for  unity,  and 
yet  can  give  full  play  to  personality  in  man. 
We  can  see  the  wisdom  of  the  Christ  in 
speaking  of  these  profound  themes  in  terms 
of  life  and  not  of  philosophy.  Wisely  He 
ever  spoke  of  the  relation  of  men  to  God  as 
that  of  children  to  a  father.  Yet  is  not 
philosophy  suggesting  that  children  and 
parents  are  not  wholly  independent,  sep- 
arated beings?  And  Paul  well  used  re- 
ligious language  in  accord  with  his  doc- 
trine of  personal  monism,  when  he  said  of 
God:  "In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being."  Spiritual-minded  men  are 
seeing  that  the  pantheistic  trend  of  Hindu 
thought  was  a  preparation  for  the  Christ. 
In  the  doctrine  that  the  unity  of  the  uni- 
verse is  in  a  divine  personal  monism,  the 
deepest    things    of    Christ    fulfil    the    prep- 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     1 99 

aration  which  was  in  Hindu  thought.  The 
Christ  was  fond  of  calling  Himself  "  The 
Light  of  the  World."  Light  is  a  help  for 
the  mind.  Since  the  Christ  is  the  light  of 
the  intellectual  world,  He  is  the  one  to 
satisfy  the  unsatisfied,  intellectual  require- 
ments of  the  Hindu. 

Secondly,  for  millenniums  the  Hindu  has 
patiently  sought,  not  only  for  the  ultimate 
unity  of  the  universe,  but  for  reality.  Start- 
ing from  the  misleading  hypothesis  of  im- 
personal monism,  the  Hindu  could  consist- 
ently find  reality  nowhere.  Yet  he  panted 
after  reality,  though  he  never  found  it.  On 
the  Christian  explanation  of  God  and  the 
universe  that  the  unity  of  the  universe  is 
that  of  a  personal  God  in  whom  all  live,  and 
move,  and  have  their  being,  the  demand  of 
the  Hindu  mind  and  heart  for  reality  can  be 
satisfied.  As  light  was  one  great  word  of 
Christ,  so  truth  was  another.  Truth  is  the 
touchstone  of  reality.  Christ  not  only  called 
Himself  the  truth,  but  said  that  He  is  the 
way  to  truth,  He  is  the  life  of  truth.  To  the 
Hindu  the  divine  has  been  the  great  un- 
known, unsearchable,   unconscious   It.     The 


200  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Christ  says,  God  is  a  Spirit  (i.e.  a  personal 
being  who  has  intelligence,  heart,  and  will), 
Therefore,  those  who  worship  Him,  must 
worship  Him  in  spirit  (i.e.  with  thought, 
with  love,  and  with  determination)  ;  and 
thus  worshipping  intelligently,  lovingly,  and 
volitionally  must  worship  God  in  truth.  And 
the  spirit  of  man  can  thus  worship  the  divine 
Spirit  because  man  is  a  projection  of  that 
divine  Spirit,  who  Himself  seeks  the  human 
spirit.  Because  they  both  are  of  one  piece 
they  are  mystically  and  eternally  united. 

While  the  Hindu  has,  for  the  most  part, 
thought  of  the  ultimate  reality  as  imper- 
sonal, yet  he  has  also  spoken  of  It  as  being 
satchidananda,  i.e.  as  being  or  having  exist- 
ence, intelligence,  and  bliss.  To  the  Hindu 
this  conception  has  been  vague.  The  Christ 
clarifies  this  vague  Hindu  belief  by  His 
plain  inspiring  teaching  that  God  is  a  Spirit, 
i.e.  in  the  very  highest  sense  a  personal  being 
with  heart,  mind,  and  will.  With  such  a 
conviction  as  to  the  nature  of  God  and  the 
nature  of  man,  the  Hindu  longing  for  reality 
is  met.  Now  every  man  can  have  absolute 
confidence   in   himself   as   real,    and   in   his 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    20I 

mental  and  spiritual  activities  as  real; 
whereas,  on  the  Hindu  assumption  of  im- 
personal monism,  man  himself  and  all  his 
activities,  and  all  the  phenomena  of  the  uni- 
verse, were  illusory  and  unreal.  Oh  Christ, 
how  marvellously  Thou  wilt  help  Thy 
Hindu  children  into  release  from  mdyd 
and  unreality,  and  enable  them  to  walk  on 
solid  ground! 

The  Christ  gives  His  clearest,  fullest  as- 
surance of  the  reality  of  ourselves  by  show- 
ing that  He  is  Himself  a  man,  a  full  rep- 
resentative man,  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
through  this  revelation  of  man,  He  also  gives 
the  most  satisfactory  assurance  that  God  is 
real,  by  showing  that  our  final,  conclusive 
test  of  what  God  is  like  and  of  what  God 
will  do,  is  the  action  of  our  own  spirits: 
"  What  man  is  there  of  you,  who,  if  his  son 
shall  ask  him  for  a  loaf,  will  he  give  him  a 
stone?  ...  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how 
to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  who  is  in 
heaven  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask 
Him? "  Christ's  conviction  and  teaching 
of  the  eternal,  absolute  dependableness  of  all 


202  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

sound  human  activities  and  conclusions  is 
shown  in  His  constant  teaching  by  parables, 
the  assumption  being  that  God  and  all  men 
think  alike,  and  act  alike,  and  are  reliable. 
So  India's  long  craving  for  reality  has  been 
a  preparation  for  the  truth-giving  Christ, 
w^ho  fulfils  the  Hindu's  longing  for  reality. 
Thirdly,  while  the  previous  lecture  has 
shown  that  India  longs  for  largeness,  yea, 
infinity,  yet  most  of  her  people  have  longed 
for,  and  tried  to  find,  some  manifestation  of 
the  great  unknown  which  is  near,  which  is 
visible,  which  is  approachable,  which  re- 
sponds to  the  appeal  of  human  need.  This 
is  the  psychological  explanation  of  idolatry, 
of  the  deification  of  saints,  and  of  belief  in 
incarnations.  Both  high  and  low,  philoso- 
pher and  peasant,  saint  and  sinner,  have 
craved  and  believed  that  they  had  found 
some  helpful  incarnation.  Yet  they  them- 
selves have  shown  that  they  had  not  been  satis- 
fied because  numerous  unsatisfactory  incarna- 
tions have  followed  one  after  another.  And 
the  clearest  evidence  of  the  Hindu's  prepara- 
tion for  the  Christ  is  the  well-nigh  universal 
anticipation  of  another  incarnation  to  come, 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    203 

the  Kalki  Avatar,  who  is  to  be  both  a  human 
and  a  divine  incarnation  and  one  to  be 
stained  by  suffering. 

In  theory  the  Mohammedan  stoutly  con- 
troverts the  possibility  of  any  incarnation 
of  the  divine  in  the  human.  Yet  he  prac- 
tically expresses  a  demand  for  something 
like  an  incarnation  by  his  always  coupling 
the  name  of  the  prophet  of  Mecca  with 
Allah  in  his  oft-repeated  call  to  worship. 
Also  the  Mohammedan  looks  for  a  coming 
prophet  greater  than  Mohammed  and  one 
who  will  replace  him.  God  has  been  pre- 
paring both  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  for 
finding  in  the  Christ  a  perfect  manifestation 
of  the  divine  in,  and  through,  a  perfect 
human  being,  divine  because  He  is  perfect. 

Fourthly,  the  intellect,  the  conscience,  and 
the  heart  of  India  have  all  been  baffled  in 
their  search  for  a  solution  of  the  haunting 
problem  of  unmerited  suffering.  They  could 
not  rest  without  some  profound,  far-reaching 
explanation.  Because  no  other  adequate  so- 
lution had  been  shown,  India  sought  in  ab- 
stract justice,  without  any  consideration  of 
love,  the  logical  basis  of  an  explanation  of 


204  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

the  mystery  of  undeserved  suffering.  The 
logical  explanation  by  an  hypothesis  that  the 
mystery  of  apparently  unmerited  trouble  is 
in  the  necessity  of  retribution  in  the  present 
life  of  wrong-doing  in  a  previous  unremem- 
bered  existence  w^as  unsatisfying,  because  it 
allowed  no  room  for  a  thought  or  influence 
of  love.  However,  love  cannot  come  into 
consideration  when  there  is  no  personal  God, 
but  only  an  impersonal  It  to  explain  the 
mystery  of  the  world.  Instinctively  recog- 
nizing the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  Karma 
doctrine,  the  Hindu  sought  Release  from  it 
in  the  allied,  but  equally  unsatisfying,  doc- 
trine of  transmigration.  In  the  transmigra- 
tion doctrine,  too,  there  is  no  thought  of 
love.  In  all  of  India's  patient,  dissatisfied 
mental  search,  there  is  no  more  pathetic  and 
conclusive  evidence  of  her  longing  for  a 
more  satisfying  conclusion  than  in  her  think- 
ing that  she  had  found  the  explanation  of 
the  universe  in  the  action  of  abstract  justice, 
which  makes  the  sole  object  of  the  world 
an  opportunity  for  the  retributive  requital 
of  past  wrong-doing,  and  then  of  Release 
from  this  system  by  practical  non-qxistence. 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    205 

How  evidently  that  longing  of  the  Hindu 
heart  has  prepared  it  for  the  need  of  a 
fulfilment  through  a  revelation  of  the  divine 
love,  and  how  perfectly  the  Christ,  and  only 
the  Christ,  can  supply  the  fulfilment! 

From  the  Christ  the  Christian  has  learned 
first,  that  the  unmerited  sufferings  of  the 
Christ  were  voluntary  and  were  joyfully  en- 
dured. Of  His  own  will,  for  love's  sake, 
at  the  hands  of  evil  men  whom  He  loved, 
He  bore  such  sufferings  as  none  other  have 
borne,  even  to  the  last  extremity  on  the  cross. 
"  For  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him,  He 
endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame"; 
secondly,  that  the  unmerited  sufferings  of 
the  Christ  are  a  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
God  in  His  tender  compassion  toward  sinful 
children,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He 
gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life";  thirdly,  the  Christian 
sees  that  the  result  of  Christ's  undeserved 
sufferings  is  the  awakening  of  repentance  in 
sinners,  of  changing  their  hearts,  of  making 
them  loyal  to  God  and  ready  themselves  to 
suffer  for  the  salvation  of  erring  fellow  men. 


2o6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

What  the  Christ  has  been  doing  for  other 
peoples,  He  is  actually  now  doing  for  Hin- 
dus. When  the  Christ  said:  "I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me,"  of 
course  He  included  the  Hindus.  From 
personal  knowledge  through  thirty-six  years 
of  service  in  India,  I  testify  that,  on  a  large 
scale,  the  suffering  Christ,  more  than  the 
teaching  Christ,  is  drawing  both  the  igno- 
rant and  the  learned,  both  the  degraded 
and  refined,  marvellously  to  Himself,  and 
through  Himself  to  God,  and  into  willing 
suffering  for  erring  fellow  men. 

Fifthly,  in  asceticism  the  Hindu  has  shown 
an  unsatisfied  longing  which  will  lead  him  to 
find  fulfilment  in  the  Christ,  which  fulfilment 
the  Christ  is  fitted  to  supply.  In  the  belief 
that  the  world  is  unreal,  that  the  object  of 
life  is,  at  any  cost,  by  utmost  self-denial  to 
escape  from  the  unreal,  the  unworthy,  into 
some  vague  better  state,  millions  of  Hindus 
have  for  centuries  voluntarily  and  continu- 
ously undergone  self-denial,  deprivation,  ab- 
negation, torture,  of  which  men  of  the  West 
can  form  no  conception.  The  weakness  of 
the    Hindu    has    not   been    the    Westerner's 


INDIA'S  PREPAR.\TION ;  CHRIST'S  POWER    207 

weakness  of  satisfaction  with  material  com- 
fort and  indifference  to  the  highest  ideal, 
but  a  conscientious,  persistent  pursuit  of 
what  was  deemed  the  highest  good.  But 
through  the  pursuit  of  a  mistaken  ideal,  it 
was  a  sad  waste  of  the  possibilities  of  full 
and  noble  life.  As  the  modern  spirit  dis- 
solves the  Hindu's  conception  of  the  world, 
of  men,  of  God,  and  of  the  object  of  life,  and 
as  the  old  reasons  for  asceticism  lose  their 
lure,  for  what  has  this  ascetic  phase  of  Hindu 
thought  and  life  been  preparing  itself  and 
how  will  it  find  fulfilment?  Is  not  India's 
ascetic  past  a  marvellous  preparation  for  a 
deep  appreciation  of  the  Christ  who  reveals 
God  as  the  great  sufferer,  the  One  who  must 
deny  Himself  for  the  good  of  His  erring 
children?  "  God  commendeth  His  love  to- 
ward us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners, 
Christ  died  for  us."  Under  the  inspiration 
of  such  an  example  may  we  not  expect  that 
Christian  India  will  gladly  take  up  its  cross 
and  follow  Christ  in  order  to  help  weak 
and  sinning  brother  men? 

Also  the  Christ  reveals  and  fulfils  the  true 
reason  for  self-sacrifice  to  be  not  the  ascetic 


2o8  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

reason  of  making  one's  self  perfect,  but  of 
thereby  serving  fellow  men  and  pleasing  the 
heavenly  Father.  "  The  Son  of  Man  came 
not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many."  More- 
over, in  the  finest  book  of  Hinduism,  the 
Bhagavad  Gita,  it  is  taught  that  the  good 
man  is  to  do  good  without  any  desire  for 
reward.  But  human  nature  being  what  it 
is,  that  half  truth  of  the  value  of  doing  good 
without  desire  for  reward  has  no  dynamic 
without  the  complementary  truth  which  the 
Christ  taught  and  illustrated,  viz.:  that  one 
should  gladly  suffer  and  serve,  in  order  to 
please  one's  heavenly  Father,  apart  from 
desire  for  personal  gain.  Teaching  that  one 
should  serve  in  this  way,  the  Christ  said: 
*'  Love  your  enemies,  .  .  .  that  ye  may  be 
sons  of  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven;  .  .  . 
if  ye  love  them  that  love  you  ...  do  not 
even  the  publicans  the  same?  ...  Be  ye 
perfect  as  your  heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 
And  the  Christ  taught  how  an  unsought  for, 
unexpected  blessing  will  come  to  those  who 
serve  Him,  in  serving  their  fellow  men, 
when  He  said:  "Then  shall  the  king  say. 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    209 

Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father.  /  was 
hungry  and  ye  gave  me  to  eat."  And  when 
those  who  had  been  unselfishly  benevolent 
shall  say,  with  amazement:  "When  saw  we 
Thee  hungry  and  fed  Thee? "  the  king 
shall  answer:  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto 
one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye 
did  it  unto  Me." 

Sixthly,  the  Hindu  doctrine  of  the  Spirit 
calls  for  a  fulfilment  which  only  the  Christ 
can  give.  It  seems  almost  incredible  that 
in  a  land  which,  on  the  surface,  seems  given 
over  to  idolatry,  ceremonialism,  superstition, 
much  degradation,  and  grinding  poverty,  it 
should  be  true  that  the  ideal  of  even  the 
ignorant  and  poor  should  be  of  the  Spirit 
as  the  great  reality.  To  the  educated  and 
philosophical,  the  Spirit  was  the  only  reality. 
The  Hindu  thinker  and  the  plain  man  con- 
stantly speak  of  the  Spirit,  the  Atman,  and 
of  the  Supreme  Spirit,  the  Paramatman. 
But  to  them  the  ultimate  reality  being  an 
impersonal  monism,  they  could  not  apply  to 
that  Supreme  Spirit  an  adjective  of  moral 
meaning.  Nor  did  even  the  Hebrew  proph- 
ets   do   much   of    this.      In    the   Old   Testa- 


2IO  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

meiit  there  are  limited  references  to  the 
Spirit  of  God,  but  not  the  expression,  the 
Holy  Spirit.  The  chief  gift  of  the  Christ  to 
the  Christian  has  been  His  teaching  about 
the  Holy  Spirit  just  before  His  own  de- 
parture from  the  world,  and  His  imparting 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  after  the  resurrection. 
As  to  the  Christian,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
fulfilment  and  the  fulfiller  of  even  the  deep- 
est things  of  Christ,  so  to  the  Hindu,  with  his 
recognition  of  the  Spirit  as  the  supreme  real- 
ity, there  will  come  only  through  the  Christ  a 
fulfilment  of  the  conception  of  the  Spirit 
as  holy. 

Without  attempting  to  specify  other  points 
in  which  India  has  been  prepared  for  a  ful- 
filment of  thought  and  life  by  the  Christ 
and  of  the  Christ's  fitness  to  supply  that  ful- 
filment, I  mention  in  conclusion  the  su- 
preme Hindu  institution  of  caste.  As  indi- 
cated in  the  third  lecture,  the  institution  of 
caste  started  with  proper  natural  reasons, 
and  its  basal  assumption  is  that  of  the  united- 
ness  of  men  as  actual  members  one  of  another 
with  reciprocal  serviceableness  and  duties. 
But  falling  from  that  natural  proper  starting 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    211 

point,  it  has  largely  become  an  unbrotherly, 
unprogressive,  tyrannical  institution,  injurious 
to  society  and  to  religion.  However,  since  the 
Christ  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  in- 
stitutions, as  well  as  beliefs,  and  since  He 
will  not  let  one  jot  or  one  tittle  of  law  or 
institution  pass  away  without  being  fulfilled, 
it  is  inspiring  to  think  of  how  India  needs  a 
fulfilment  of  her  characteristic  institution, 
which,  though  debased,  calls  for  fulfilment, 
and  to  anticipate  how  the  Christ  is  fitted  to 
save  to  the  uttermost,  not  only  individuals, 
but  also  institutions. 

Even  the  Christian  West  is  only  beginning 
to  recognize  that  society  is  an  inseparable, 
indissoluble  organism  of  which  God  is  the 
head,  the  life,  the  source,  and  therefore, 
that  the  smallest  member  of  society  is  ac- 
tually connected  with  God  and  with  every 
other  human  being.  It  has  taken  nineteen 
centuries  for  the  Western  church  and  West- 
ern civilization  to  begin  adequately  to  un- 
derstand this  fundamental  truth.  When  the 
conception  of  a  personal  monism  is  the 
philosophical  basis  for  an  adequate  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe  of  sentient  beings. 


212  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

and  when  a  growing  appreciation  of  the 
vast,  mysterious  subliminal  life  shows  how 
every  man  is  a  personal  projection  from  the 
personal  God,  ever  actually  in  connection 
with  Him,  and  therefore,  with  every  other 
human  being,  society  will  more  adequately 
appreciate  the  value  of  the  basal  truth  in  the 
caste  system,  and  will  marvel  that  India  first 
developed  that  formative  principle  on  a 
large  scale. 

But  under  the  downward  pull  of  the  flesh 
that  idea  of  society  got  twisted  in  India  in  at 
least  two  ways.  First,  instead  of  seeing 
that  privilege  brought  responsibility,  the 
upper  caste  reversed  the  order  and  imagined 
that  society  is,  and  should  be,  ordered  so  that 
the  lower  shall  exist  for,  and  serve  the 
upper,  and  that  the  relations  and  conditions 
which  have  once  been  formed  should  be 
stationary  and  hereditary.  Second,  caste 
limited  the  unitedness  of  men  to  those  within 
the  Hindu  pale.  Therefore,  at  present, 
Hindu  society  has  nothing  to  give  to  others, 
and  nothing  to  receive  from  them.  A  non- 
Hindu  could  never  become  a  Hindu,  and 
the   golden   age   of   Hinduism   being   in   its 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    213 

past,  it  could  get  nothing  from  others.  It 
was  a  most  heinous  sin  for  a  Hindu  to  leave 
India  to  go  to  other  countries,  even  in  the 
desire  to  benefit  his  native  land.  To-day  no 
one  thing  is  more  evident  in  India  than  a 
sense  of  injury  from  caste  as  it  exists. 

However,  the  basal  system  of  caste  was  not 
wrong.  A  social  institution  which  recog- 
nizes, as  no  other  system  has  done,  the 
unitedness  and  community  of  interest  of 
every  member  of  a  group  has  elements  of 
great  value  which  need  to  be  conserved  and 
fulfilled.  Only  the  Christ  can  do  this.  He 
teaches  as  no  one  ever  did  that  every  human 
being  is  a  child  of  the  heavenly  Father, 
most  dear  to  that  Father,  and  therefore  a 
brother  of  every  other  human  being,  and 
therefore  every  one  who  would  be  true  to 
his  heavenly  Father  must  be  loving  to  every 
brother  man;  that  if  one  member  suffers,  all 
suffer;  that  we  who  are  strong  ought  to 
bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak,  and  not  to 
please  ourselves;  that  if  a  man  loves  not  his 
brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  he  cannot  love 
God  whom  he  has  not  seen.  Thus  the  Christ 
removes,     not    only     the     first    mischievous 


214  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

Hindu  subversion,  and  fulfils  the  correct 
basal  principle  of  caste  that  all  Hindus  are 
indissolubly  connected  with  one  another  in 
order  that  the  higher  may  serve  the  lower, 
but  Christ  also  removes  the  second  sub- 
version which  limits  the  unitedness  of  men 
to  those  who  are  within  the  Hindu  pale,  and 
fulfils  it  by  showing  that  all  men  of  every 
race  are  brethren.  By  life  He  shows  this 
through  leading  Christians  from  distant 
lands  to  manifest  that  they  have  brotherly 
feelings  by  their  going  to  India  to  serve 
brother  men  there. 

I  am  not  only  making  a  forecast  of  what 
Christ  could  do  to  fulfil  the  elements  of 
India's  past  thought  and  life,  but  I  can  show 
that  He  actually  is  thus  fulfilling  that  prep- 
aration. The  Christ  is  not  only  the  wisdom 
of  God,  but  still  more  is  He  the  power  of 
God.  First,  every  one  who  knows  India 
intimately  knows  that  while  the  most  spirit- 
ual men  of  that  country  are  not  being  nu- 
merously drawn  to  identify  themselves  with 
the  Christian  Church,  and  while  some  object 
to  the  creeds  and  institution  of  the  Western 
organization    of    Christianity,    they    are    in- 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER     215 

creasingly  and  generally  being  drawn  to  a 
reverence  for  the  Christ  and  for  spiritual 
discipleship  to  Him. 

Many  concrete  illustrations  could  be  given. 
Time   permits   of   only   one.     On   the   four- 
teenth of  June,  1910,  at  the  Central  Y.M.C.A. 
Hall    in    Bombay,    the    Vice-Chancellor    of 
the  University  of  Bombay,  who  is  a  Justice 
of  the  Bombay  High  Court,  a  Hindu  gentle- 
man of  the  highest  standing,  who  does  not 
call   himself   a   Christian,   made   an   address 
on  ''  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  and  the  Spirit 
of  the  Age."    Among  other  things,  he  said: 
"  I  should  like  to  say  at  the  outset  that  it  is 
not  an  easy  thing  for  me  to  stand  on  this 
platform  and   address   a  Christian   audience 
on   the   Kingdom   of   Christ   and   the   Spirit 
of  the  Age.    Let  me  tell  you  what  I  consider 
the    greatest    miracle    of    the    present    day; 
it  is  this:  that  to  this  great  country  with  its 
three  hundred  millions  of  people,  there  should 
come  from  a  little  island  unknown  by  name 
even    to    our    forefathers,    many    thousand 
miles  distant  from  our  shores,   and  with   a 
population  of  but  fifty  to  sixty  millions,   a 
message  so  full  of  spiritual  life  and  strength 


2l6  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY    '^ 

as  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  This  surely  is  a 
miracle,  if  ever  there  was  one.  And  this 
message  has  not  only  come,  but  it  is  finding 
a  response  in  our  hearts,  for  as  I  have  already 
indicated  to  you,  the  old  conception  of  a 
spiritual  worship  of  God  has  not  entirely 
perished  from  the  minds  of  the  people, 
though  it  may  be  buried  below  a  mass  of 
ceremony  and  superstition.  The  process  of 
the  conversion  of  India  to  Christ  may  not 
be  going  on  as  rapidly  as  you  hope,  or  in 
exactly  the  manner  that  you  hope,  but,  never- 
theless, I  say  India  is  being  converted;  the 
ideas  that  lie  at  the  heart  of  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  are  slowly,  but  surely,  permeating 
every  part  of  Hindu  society  and  modifying 
every  phase  of  Hindu  thought.  And  this 
process  must  go  on  so  long  as  those  who 
preach  this  Gospel  seek,  above  all  things, 
to  commend  it,  not  so  much  by  what  they 
say,  but  by  what  they  do  and  the  way  they 
live.  And  what  is  it  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
that  commends  it  so  highly  to  our  minds?  It 
is  just  this:  that  He  was  'the  friend  of 
sinners  ';  He  would  eat  and  drink  with  pub- 
licans and  outcasts:  He  was  tender  with  the 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    217 

woman  taken  in  sin;  all  His  heart  went  out 
to  the  sinful  and  needy;  and  to  my  mind 
there  is  no  story  so  touching  and  so  com- 
forting as  the  Prodigal  Son.  Christ  re- 
served His  words  of  sternest  denunciation 
for  hypocrites,  and  especially  for  religious 
hypocrites  whose  lives  and  conduct  utterly 
belie  the  great  professions  that  they  make. 
The  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  has 
come  to  India,  and  when  it  is  presented  in 
its  fulness  and  lived  in  its  purity,  it  will  find 
a  sure  response  among  the  people  of  the 
land.  ...  I  have  no  right  to  speak  at  all 
about  the  Kingdom  of  Christ;  but  I  believe 
that  it  is  working  amongst  us  to-day;  it  is 
the  little  leaven  that  will  in  time  leaven  the 
entire  mass.  The  Kingdom  of  Christ,  I 
say,  is  working  out  its  own  ends,  slowly, 
silently,  and  yet  securely." 

In  the  West,  God  has  led  Christians  in 
ways  which,  on  the  whole,  have  commended 
the  Christ  to  their  minds  and  hearts.  They 
have  made  mistakes.  The  flesh  has  some- 
times conquered  the  spirit.  But  protests 
and  reforms  have  been  made,  and  increas- 
ingly the  West  has  come  to  obey  the  guid- 


2l8  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

ance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  interpret  the 
Christ  better,  and  to  serve  brother  men  more 
gladly  and  effectively.  The  creeds,  the  in- 
stitutions, the  modes  of  worship,  and  of  or- 
ganization have,  on  the  whole,  proved  help- 
ful. We  should  revere  the  past,  and  there- 
fore these  origins  of  our  religious  faith  and 
life.  Some  of  them  are  proving  somewhat 
helpful  to  the  thought  and  life  of  non- 
Christian  brother  men  in  other  lands.  They 
may  prove  still  more  helpful. 

However,  certainly  in  India  and  Japan, 
and  somewhat  in  China,  these  Western  in- 
terpretations are  proving  to  many  not  at- 
tractive, but  rather  repellent.  Yet  multi- 
tudes in  those  countries  are  being  vitally 
drawn  to  the  Christ.  We  may  well  have 
such  absolute  confidence  in  the  Holy  Spirit 
that  we  shall  trust  Him  to  guide  India  as  He 
has  guided  the  people  of  every  other  land, 
into  that  interpretation  and  discipleship  of 
the  Christ  into  which  He  shall  guide  them. 
But  the  one  thing  which  all  history  and 
genetic  psychology  and  the  evolutionary  doc- 
trine unquestionably  teach  is  that  India's 
Christianization  should  be,   and  will  be,  in 


INDIA'S  PREPARATION;  CHRIST'S  POWER    219 

the  development  of  her  past  history  under 
the  tutelage  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  unfolding 
and  applying  the  principles  of  Him  who  is 
the  Son  of  Man  and  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Under  the  dynamic  of 
the  Christ  and  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  the  future  religion  of  India 
will  be  one  which  is  "  a  full  re-expression 
of  the  religious  spirit "  of  all  sections  of  that 
very  religious  people.  Christian  thought  and 
life  must,  and  will  be,  domesticated  in  India 
before  they  become  general  there. 

Western  Christians  have  a  great  responsi- 
bility and  a  great  privilege  in  helping  India 
to  know  and  appreciate  the  Christ.  But  in 
the  main,  they  must  be,  and  will  be,  like 
John  the  Baptist,  a  voice  making  ready  the 
way  of  the  Christ.  Like  John  they  must 
think  and  say  of  the  Christ:  "  His  shoes  we 
are  not  worthy  to  bear;  He  shall  baptize  you 
with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  in  fire."  ''  We 
must  decrease  and  He  must  increase."  Like 
the  great  apostle  we  should  think  and  say: 
"  Christ  sent  us  not  to  baptize,  but  to  preach 
the  Gospel."  While  Western  Christians 
have  their  creeds,  and  while  most  of  them 


220  INDIA'S  RELIGIOUS  HISTORY 

require  subscription  to  elaborate  creeds,  it 
is  suggestive  that  none  of  them  give  a  brief, 
all-sufficient  creed  entirely  in  New  Testa- 
ment language.  It  is  also  a  suggestive  fact 
that  Hinduism  never  had  and  now  has  not 
one  simple  creed  nor  several  credal  state- 
ments, which  can  be  deemed  authoritative. 
The  spiritual  Indian,  who  comes  into  dis- 
cipleship  to  the  Christ  and  who  makes  the 
Holy  Spirit  his  perpetual  divine  teacher  and 
guide,  is  not  likely  to  think  subscription  to 
Western  creeds  of  the  past  essential  to  his 
taking  the  Christ  as  Lord  and  Master.  He 
will  take  the  Holy  Spirit  as  spiritual  guide 
and  strengthener.  But  India  is  sure  to  be  a 
disciple  of  the  Christ. 

"  Oh,  Christ  is  Christ,  and  rest  is  rest, 
And  love  true  love  must  greet. 
In  East  and  West  hearts  crave  for  rest; 
And  so  the  twain  shall  meet; 
— The  East  still  East  and  the  West  still 

West,— 
At  Love's  nail-pierced  feet." 

And  the  Kingdom  of  God  shall  have  come. 


INDEX 


Aborigines,  30,  69 
Aboriginal   religion,  29,   69 
Accommodation,    principle    of, 

72,   172 
Acuteness   of   thought,    Hindu, 

147 
Agaraa  Prakash,  100 
Agin,   34 

Appreciation   of  the   past,    163 
Aranyaka  Upanishad,  134 
Arrest    in    Hinduism,    12,    24, 

26,    58,  60,  73,  95.   124 
Arya  Samaj,  108 
Aryans,  30,  69 
Aryan    religion,    features    of, 

33,  36 
Asceticism,  151,  155,  206 
Assumptions,  Hindu,  148 
Assumptions  of  these  lectures, 

13,  135,  145 
Atharva    Veda,   31,   34,   36,    37 
Atman,  153,  209 
Authority,   104,   171 

Baptism,  219 
Benares,  157 
Bhagavad    Gita,    77,    79,    154, 

208 
Bhagavata  religion,  82,  86,  90 
Bhaktamala,   91 
Bhakti,   81,   82,    84,   87,   166 
Bhaktimarga,  77,  155 
Bible,  21,  33 
Brahmanaspati,   49 
Brahmans,    138,    158,    167,    175 
Brahma  Samaj,  104 
Brahmavidya,  44 
Brihad    Aranyaka    Upanishad, 

13+ 
Buddha,  the,  54 
Buddhism,   54,   55,   59,   65,   154 
Buddhists,  66 


Calcutta,  100 
Caste,  analysis  of,  134 
Caste,  definition  of,  142 
Caste,  degeneracy  of,  137,  140, 

212 
Caste,     development    of,     136, 

137,  139 
Caste,    injury   from,    141,    143, 

213 
Cat- way,  the,  85 
Ceremonialism,   53 
Chaitanya,  97 

Character,  salvation  by,  167 
Charms,  power  of,  35 
Christ    and    Christianity,    183, 

187 
Christ,    divinity    of,     13,     132, 

188,   189 
Christ,  effects  of  vision  of,  20 
Christ's  explanation  of  suffer- 
ing, 118,   132,  205 
Christ,     fulfilment     of     India's 

desire,    191,    193.    i95.   213 
Christ,    India's    ignorance    of, 

18,  53,  74,  I",   132 
Christ,     India's    need    of,     13, 

178,   213 
Christ,  influence  of,  214 
Christ's    revelation    of    divine 

love,  205 
Christ's     revelation     of     God, 

197 
Christ's     revelation     of     man, 

200,   201 
Christians,  i86 
Compromise,   94 
Confucianism,  163 
Conscience,  52 
Contact  with  West,  effects  of, 

170,   193 
Conversion   to    Christ,   India's, 

216 
Creation  hymn,  n6 


222 


INDEX 


Creeds,  214,  218,  220 
Curse,  Brahman's,  158,  175 
Cyrus,   22 

Death,  thought  about,  50 
Debendranath  Sen,  104 
Degeneracy,    ages    of    Indian, 

27 
Degeneracy,  causes  of  Indian, 

24,  25 
Degeneracy,   Indian,   24 
Degeneracy,    steps    of,    27,    34, 

35,   42,   58,   68,   73,   95,    loi, 

124,  212 
Depressed  classes,  141 
Deshmukh,   Hon.   Gopal  Hari, 

100 
Deussen,  115 
Dravidians,  30 
Dvaita  Vedanta,  153 

Essentials  of  Hinduism,  113 
Evolution,  68,  126,  188 

Faith,  41 

Farquhar,    J.    N.,    obligations 

to,  146 
Fate,  168 
Fatherhood,    God's    universal, 

60,  62,  198 
Force,  99 
Fulfilment  of  best  elements  of 

Hinduism,     177,      179,     191, 

193,  206,  209,  210 

Gautama  Buddha,  54,  66 
Gaya,  Buddha's  birthplace,  66 
God,    personal,    75,    120,    197, 

199,   200 
God,  suffering  of,  25 
God  the   Father  of  spirits,  62 
God  the  great  Reality,  25 
Gopal  Hari  Deshmukh,  100 
Gospel  of  Christ,  216 
Govind  Singh,  Guru,  97 
Grace,  85 
Granth,  the,  95 
Greek  religion,   184 
Guru,   91 

Hari,  94 


Hebrews,  epistle  to  the,  183, 
188  _ 

Hinduism,  beginning  of  mod- 
ern, 67 

Hinduism,  elements  of  power, 
147,.  153,  155,  159,  163 

Hinduism,  elements  of  weak- 
ness, 26,  loi,  164,  167,  168, 
169,   173,   174,  212 

Hinduism,  essentials  of,  113 

Hinduism,  non-missionary,  169 

Hinduism,  popular  doomed, 
III,   146 

Hinduism,  why  unsatisfactory, 

Hindus  very  religious,  14 

History,  characteristic  of  In- 
dia's, 12,  24,  64,  108 

History,  Hindu  indifference 
to,  126 

Hogg,    A.    G.,    obligations   to, 

Holy  Spirit,  eternal,  universal 
activity  of,  19,  53,  108,  145, 
147,  180 

Humility,  essential  to  a  mis- 
sionary, 20 

Hunter,  Sir  William,  quoted, 
72 

Hypocrisy,  i6,  217 

Ideas,  power  of,  56 
Idolatry,  30,  151,  160,  202 
Illusion,  tndya,  96,  165 
Imagination,  Hindu,  89,   i66 
Immortality,  52 
Impersonal  monism,  46,  49,  70 
Incarnations,    doctrine    of,    87, 

90 
Incarnation  expected,  27,  202 
Indian  Christians,  59,  61 
Intellectualism,  cold,  48,  54 

164 
Isaiah  and  Buddha,  57 
Islam,  91,  93 
It,  48,  96,  199 

Jainism,  60,  65,  154 
Japan,  218 

Jewish  preparation  for  Christ, 
183 


INDEX 


223 


Jnanmarga,  151,  i55 
Job,  50,  118 

Justice,  53,  121,  125,  128,  203, 
204 

Kabir,  94,  154 

Kalighatta,  100 

Kali,  Goddess,  76,   100 

Kali  Yuga,  27 

Kalki  Avatar,  27 

Karma  and  Redemption,  obli- 
gations to,  114 

Karma,  defects  of  doctrine  of, 
124,  133,  173.  204 

Karma,  doctrine  of,  52,  115, 
131,  168 

Karma,  merits  of  doctrine, 
121,  131 

Kesliab  Chandra  Sen,  105,  192 

Kingdom  of   Christ,  215 

Knowledge,   the   way   of,    151, 

155. 
Kolarians,   30 
Krishna,  77,  89,  154 
Kumarila,  71 

Leaven,  Christ  and  His  Spirit 

a,  181 
Leavening,      Christ's      method, 

i8i 
Light,   Christ  the,   199 
Luther,  93 

Magic,  30 

Mahabharata,  83,  123 
Mahadeva,  loi 
Mahavira,   59,  60 
Mantras,  lor 
Maya,  96,  165 
Middle  way  of  Buddha,  54 
Missionaries,    Buddhist,    58 
Missionaries,  Christian,  176 
Missions,  service  from,  17  _ 
Modern    spirit    and    Hinduism, 
169,   171,   176,    191,   193,   194 
Mohammed,  92,  203 
Mohammedanism,  91,  93,  203 
Monism,    impersonal,    46,    49, 

70.  74- 
Monism,  personal,  196,  211 
Monkey-way,  the,  85 


Monotheism,    Incipient    in    Ve- 
das,  36,  48,  153 

Nanak,  94,  154 

National  spirit,  170 

Nature,  32,  189 

Nature,  personification  of,  32 

Neo-Hinduism,  112,  172,  195 

Neo-Platonists,  112 

New  birth,  107 

New  Dispensation,  105 

Optimism,  150 

Organization  in  Hinduism,  156 

Pandharpur,  161 

Pantheism,  46,  153 

Parables,   significance   of,   181, 

182,  202 
Paramatman,  153 
Past,    appreciation    of    the,    in 

Hinduism,  163 
Paul,  188,  189,  198 
Personification    of    nature,    32 
Philosophic  speculation,  43,  46 
Poets,  Hindu,  154 
Polytheism,  33,   151 
Prajapati,  40,  49 
Prarthana  Samaj,  106 
Priestcraft,  rise  of,  138 
Priests,  30 
Protestantism  in  Hinduism,  65, 

146 
Psychology,  illustrations  from, 

15,  26,  28,  198 
Puranas,  90,  155 
Puri,  161 
Purusha,  49 

Rajah  Rammohan  Roy,  103 

Rama,  88 

Ramananda,  82,  154 

Ramanuja,  80,  82,  154 

Readiness  to  learn,  a  mission- 
ary qualification,  20 

Reality,  26,  49,  130,  133,  150, 
194,  199,  201 

Reason,  172 

Rebirth,  51,  87,  130 

Reformers,  70,  154 

Reforms  in  Hinduism,  12,  24, 
93,  "I 


224 


INDEX 


Release  from  Karma,  ii6,  124, 
130,  204 

Religion,  aboriginal,  29,  69 

Religion,  fundamental  ele- 
ments everywhere,  14 

Religion,  influence  of,  in  In- 
dia, 14 

Retribution,  51 

Revelations,  God's  to  Hindus, 
14,  79,  82,  88,  98,  130,  132, 
164 

Riddles,  religious,  43 

Rig  Veda,   31,   38,  46 

Roman  religion,   184 

Rta,  39 

Sacramental  meal,  160 

Sacramentarianism,  42 

Sacrifices,  animal,  34,  70 

Sacrifices  in  Yajur  and  Athar- 
va   Vedas,   34 

Sacrifices,  Vedic,  34,  160 

Sadhus,  97,  99 

Salvation,  80,  166 

Sama  Veda,  31 

S'ankara,  71,  75 

Satchitananda,  200 

Scientific  spirit,  the,  190,  191 

Sen,   Debendranath,   104 

Sen,  Keshab  Chandra,  105,  192 

Serpent  worship,  30 

Shaivism,  75 

Shakta  Hinduism,  loi 

Shakti,  99,   loi 

Shiva,  72,  75 

Slirdddlia,  40 

Sikhism,  95,  97 

Sikhs,  94 

Sin,  120,  167 

Society  an  organism,  163,  211 

Sociology,  teachings  of,  15 

Solidarity  of  society  in  Hindu- 
ism, 162 

Spirit,  the,  33,  152,  209 

Spiritual  non-Christian  Hin- 
dus, 214,  220 

Sufi^ering,  117,  132,  150,  203 

Sun  worship,  early,  32 

Superstitions,  28,  69 


Tantras,   99,    100 
Tares,  parable  of,  28 
Temples,  152,   160 
Teutons,    the    contribution    of 

the,  185 
Theology,  errors  of  Hindu,  25 
Theosophic  speculations,  46 
Theosophical  Society,  108 
Totemism,  113 
Townsend,  Meredith,  26 
Transmigration,     doctrine     of, 

53,  114.  129 
Truth,  Christ's,  199 
Tukaram,  97 
Tulsidas,  97 

Unity,    felt    necessity    for,    70, 

73,  195,  196,  199 
Universe,    Hindu    assumptions 

about,  148 
Unreality    in    Hinduism,    133, 

149,  151,  167,  172,   194 
Upanishad,  Aranyaka,  134 
Upanishads,  50,  67 

Vaishnavism,  76,  82,  154 

Varuna,  36 

Vedanta,  50 

Vedantic  school,  73,  153 

Vedas,  50,  70,  157 

Vedic  religion,  34 

Veil,     how     to     be     removed, 

189 
Virtues  personified,  49 
Vishistha-advaita   Vedanta, 

153 
Vishnu,  32,  76,  88 

Way,  Jesus  Christ  the,  23 
Wheat  and  tares,  parable  of, 

28 
Williams,       Monier,       quoted, 

100,   lOI 
Witchcraft,  30 
Works,  the  way  of,  155 
Worship,  craving  for,  supplied 

by  Hindus,  159 
Wyckliffe,  82 

Yajur  Veda,  31,  34 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  215 


Date  Due 

.:^r^    .'  ?      . 

MR  1  n  '53 

1 

■^'  ■ ' 

L"' 

•^C»»"<^ 

k 

¥' 

;v-)v  p . 

JJJi*"^*'*'^ 

k— ^ 

^■umi 

k 

«^crTw 

r^ 

f) 

BL2001.H92  ,       ,    . 

An  interpretation  of  India  s  religious 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00109  0846 


